Number 96 Home Page

NOVEL: The plotlines for this original paperback novel, "Number 96" (published by Stag, a division of Horwitz, North Sydney; released in early 1976), take place around the time of Episode #885 in late 1975. The title page is simply "96" . The two main story arcs feature Jaja Gibson and Grace "Prim" Primrose prominently, but no actors from the series appear on the book's cover. There is even a series of references to the ongoing garbage strike, aka The Dustbin Dispute , against Paddington Council happening in the aired series, in particular: Episode #885 (Weppo tells Reg about the proposed strike action); Episode #890 (Reg asks Weppo to resign); Episode #892 (TV journalist Brian Proud covers strike for Channel TEN); Episode #894 (Norma gets involved); Episode #896 (Network 0-10's The Mike Walsh Show interviews Dorrie and Weppo); and Episode #898 (Strike is over). Uncredited, this novel was apparently written by Carl Ruhen, who did the Neighbour...

Essay by Anne Harrex, February 2014 Between 1972 and 1974, eight novelisations based on storylines from the TV show, Number 96 , were published by Angus & Robertson under the Arkon paperback imprint. In the end, I wrote seven of these and edited another of them (“The Wayward Husband”) for publication. It all began with an advertisement in the weekend newspaper, “The Review”, formerly “Sunday Review”, “The Sunday Review” and, in its last incarnation, “Nation Review”. The ad may have appeared somewhere else, but this was where I saw it. Writers were wanted for crime and romance novels (I think it was romance) – “to apply send examples of your work to…” (The address gave no other clues.) I’d always been writing and had a drawerful of rejection slips to prove it. As I had two young children, who were now both at school, it looked like the ideal thing for me. In those days there were still postal deliveries on a Saturday morning. It was a Saturday some weeks later when a parc...