Richard Bird

The Secret Thread

A writer, Arnold Reed, goes back to his former boyhood home in the East End, and there, finding it about to be torn down, he revisits his attic room, and stumbles on evidence of the operations of dealers in illegal traffic. He breaks his ankle and has to hide from the criminals, one of whom is a murderer.

Forbidden

Set on Blackpool’s Golden Mile, Jim (Douglass Montgomery), a once promising scientist, sets up in business as a patent medicine man selling hair tonic at the fair with his ex-army colleague Dan (Ronald Shiner). Following a fight with local hoods over pitch spaces, Jim falls for Jane (Hazel Court), the girl on a nearby candy floss stall. The two begin dating but Jim fails to mention he is already married.

Don't Take It to Heart

A stray World War Two bomb releases the ghost of the 3rd Earl of Chaunduyt after 400 years. A visiting professor, while wooing the beautiful Lady Mary, daughter of the present Earl, finds him an ally in his fight on behalf of the villagers to protect their ancient rights against a meddling newcomer.

The Halfway House

A group of travellers, each with a personal problem that they want to hide, arrive at a mysterious Welsh country inn. There is a certain strangeness in the air as they are greeted by the innkeeper and his daughter. Why are all the newspapers a year old? And why doesn't Gwyneth seem to cast a shadow?

I'll Walk Beside You

John meets Ann at a music shop where she works. Love blossoms briefly before John is called away to serve on his naval ship. John suffers severe memory loss when his ship is sunk and Ann believing John is dead throws herself into nursing - will they ever meet again?

The Door with Seven Locks

A wealthy lord dies and is entombed with a valuable deposit of jewels. Seven keys are required to unlock the tomb and get hold of the treasure. A mad doctor uses an iron maiden to systematically eliminate the heirs to the fortune.

Bulldog Drummond at Bay

Drummond goes up against foreign agents who are trying to steal plans for a top-secret aircraft.

Sensation

Pat Heaton may be the best crime reporter in town but his fiancée Claire, despairing of the more tawdry aspects of his profession, makes him promise to give the job up. When a pretty waitress is found murdered, however, Pat falls in line with the rest of the 'Murder Gang' the pack of reporters who gather to glean stories by fair means or foul!

Invitation To The Waltz

As the threat of Napoleonic invasion looms ever closer, a German duke and potential ally of England falls for a pretty ballerina.

The Crouching Beast

In 1915 during the First World War, a British secret agent is killed while stealing secret Turkish plans for the Gallipoli Campaign but manages to pass his information to an American journalist.

Mimi

A struggling playwright in 1850s Paris and his mate finds love that furnishes him with the inspiration he has long sought.

The Great Defender

Sir Douglas Rolls is a highly respected defence lawyer of many years experience. Now in rapidly failing health, he is advised to retreat from the courtroom and pursue more pleasurable activities. But it is just at this point in his life that his great lost love a woman his own strong sense of duty led him to give up twenty years ago, and whom he still loves deeply walks into his chambers to ask that he defend her adulterous husband, now to stand trial for murder. Reluctantly agreeing to take on the case, Sir Douglas soon finds there is more to the story than meets the eye.

What Happened Then?

Young Raymond Rudford,sculptor, is on trial for slitting the throat of his uncle, who had adopted and raised him after Raymond's parent's died when he was a young boy. The prosecution allows his motive was fear of being disinherited if he married his fiancé, the fair Alicia Atherton, against his uncle's wishes, and the prosecution lays a mountain of evidence against Raymond, including his razor, dragged from an artificial lake on the estate, as the murder weapon; Raymond's bloody fingerprints and footprints found at the scene of bedroom crime, and his bloody shoes, found in his cupboard and bloody monogrammed-handkerchief found under his uncle's death bed. Raymond's only defense is that he could not have committed the crime as he goes into a paroxysm of dread at the mere sight of blood, a phobia he has had ever since childhood when his dog was run over by a lorry and the dog's blood was splattered into his face.

The Warren Case

Chided by his boss for a conspicuous lack of sensational stories, Lewis Bevan takes matters into his own hands to revive his flagging career.

The Right to Live

A shady financier tries to acquire a new chemical

White Face

A doctor becomes a blackmailer and a jewel thief in order to raise funds for a hospital in East London but is uncovered by an ambitious reporter.

The Water Gipsies

Jane Bell has lived on an old barge moored in the Thames with her feckless father and sister ever since their mother died, but she would prefer her life to be more like the movies

Nine Till Six

Two women of different social backgrounds work together in a dressmakers.

Tilly of Bloomsbury

A young woman falls in love with an aristocrat and tries to convince his parents that she is herself wealthy.