Author of the book that inspired new BBC series The Gallows Pole talks about the story of the Cragg Vale Coiners

Now that story has been adapted into a new series by Shane Meadows for BBC Two.

"I moved to the area in 2009 and lived in Mytholmroyd and I heard a bit about this local mythology but there wasn’t that much information about it, and I didn’t look too deeply in to it,” Ben said.

"One day my wife, Adelle [Stripe], who’s also a writer, was visiting a place called The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle in Durham, she walked in to the library and was looking along the shelves and there was one book that didn’t have a spine on it. She pulled it out, put it on the table and it fell open at the trial notes of the Cragg Vale coiners, so she was reading them from 1770 and she came home that day and said ‘You know the coiners story?’ and I said ‘yes I know a bit about it’ and she said ‘that would make a brilliant TV series, you should write it’ and I said ‘well I don’t know how to write telly, but I could have a go and write a novel and maybe Shane Meadows could film it one day with some of the actors from This Is England.’

"That was in 2014, and it wasn’t even a plan, it was sort of a joking pipe dream really.”

Ben spent 2014 and 2015 researching and writing The Gallows Pole.

He delved into the story of David Hartley and the Cragg Vale Coiners, who back in the 18th century clipped and filed the edges from gold coins, producing counterfeit coins from the shavings and returning the clipped coins into circulation.

The Gallows Pole is a fictionalised retelling of the outlaw Coiners.

“The book was sent out to 10 publishers and they all turned it down,” Ben said. “So I published it through a small publisher called Blue Moose Books based in Hebden Bridge, who I’d already done two books with, and they understand the area, they understand the story, and we built the whole thing up from the ground.

"Myself and Kevin Duffy who runs that publisher, we launched it in, what is now (on screen in the series), Barb’s pub in Heptonstall, which is otherwise known as Heptonstall Museum, in the Spring of 2017 when the book came out, and built it up as a word of mouth thing.

"We printed 2000 copies and it got some good reviews in national press and then booksellers started getting in touch, it had a very eye-catching cover designed by a friend of mine and it just gradually built and built and built.

"Then it was optioned for film and then in Autumn 2019, I got a call from Element Pictures saying ‘a director’s read it and he wants to make it and we’ve got a name for you’.

"This was on the phone and I was in a remote cottage in Scotland writing another book, and I said ‘who’s the name?’ and they said ‘It’s Shane Meadows’.

"It had come full circle.”

The Gallows Pole will begin on BBC Two on Wednesday, May 31