James, Peter

The British author and film producer Peter James was born in Hove and grew up in Brighton, Sussex. His British father, Jack Burnett James was an accountant, his Austrian mother Cornelia something of a celebrity as a glovemaker for the British royal family. The young James was a pupil at the Charterhouse boarding school in Godalming in Sussex, and he went on to study for two years at the Ravensbourne Film School in Bromley. After his studies, he lived initially in the early 1970s in the USA and Canada. In Toronto, 23 years old, he started to write for a children’s programme for TV. His work attracted attention, and he was one of the founders of what became a successful Canadian film company.