Writer of Mr Bates v The Post Office says her in-tray is full of people asking for help

Mr Bates v The Post Office writer Gwyneth Hughes tells Arts Editor Nina Nannar how she has been inundated with people sharing their experiences

Gwyneth Hughes tells me her in-tray is overloaded.

It’s hardly surprising when she is the person who wrote ITV drama Mr Bates v The Post Office - a dramatisation of the Horizon scandal that saw hundreds of former sub-postmasters and mistresses wrongly pursued by the Post Office.

The popular ITV series opened the floodgates for people who share a similar experience of authority doing them wrong. Many of them are now contacting Ms Hughes for help.

They are sharing their own terrible experiences, wondering if she can turn her writing skills to their predicament and help in the same way Mr Bates brought the Horizon scandal back into the public consciousness.

When I ask Ms Hughes what she plans to do next, she responds: "I’m tired. The past month has been a whirlwind, and I need to take some time and regroup."

This is understandable.

It is not often the writers of TV dramas find themselves so in-demand. That is normally the territory of the actors who deliver the lines on screen.

The power of Mr Bates v The Post Office has led to much musing on the power of drama as a whole, Ms Hughes says, adding that she is proud the genre is once more having a moment.

"Drama can just reach in and grab you, in a way that politicians might struggle," she says.

Ms Hughes deserves every accolade for her work on the series.

When producers first approached her with the story, she agreed to write it without really knowing many details.

But she is passionate about writing about ordinary people, all the better if they are from the North - she lives in North Yorkshire and says she actively seeks ways of putting the stories of Northerners on screen.

What followed was three years of intense research as she travelled around the country to talk to the victims of what has been called one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history.

Her task was to whittle everything down, to focus on a handful of the victims, which was understandably difficult.

She was left staggered and in disbelief at what they told her.

It is little wonder then that the series had such an impact on the viewers.

Of course, this is not the first drama series Ms Hughes has worked on.

She has a history in costume dramas, like the magnificent 2018 Apple TV series Vanity Fair. She is disappointed that the genre is out of fashion right now.

Ms Hughes is also acutely aware of the need to keep the Post Office victims' experiences in the headlines as they seek compensation and justice in its totality.

But few can deny that Ms Hughes - a gentle, unassuming, but fiercely committed writer - has taken a significant step for those victims, though she says what has happened since, is far beyond what anyone could have expected.

In her capable hands, a drama has revealed just how powerful it can be.

You can watch Nina Nannar's full interview with Gwyneth Hughes on ITVX