Jan is a multi-award winning comedy writer, broadcaster and journalist. Her most recent success is BBC Radio 4’s comedy Conversations From a Long Marriage, starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam, with a sixth series commissioned, to air next year. A paperback and hardback of the book of the scripts has also been published. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, with her husband Gavin Petrie, Jan has written many long running radio and TV hit comedies including Second Thoughts, Next of Kin and Faith in the Future, which won a British Comedy Award. Jan still writes regularly for many publications, including The Daily Telegraph and a monthly column in Suffolk Magazine. A mother of two and grandmother of four, Jan moved to the Suffolk coast 11 years ago. She is a daily sea swimmer and has been a tour guide for Southwold Lighthouse. Jan is a founder and regular contributor to Suffolk’s INK Festival, and her play You’ll Be Fine, based on her conversations with actress Lynda Bellingham about the importance of discussing terminal illness, premiered at the INK Festival in 2022. This year at INK, she presented her new radio drama THE S.H.I.T. Club (Supporting Husbands in Trauma), in which a group of women, with terminally ill husbands, meet to talk, laugh and support each other.
