studied English and was a keen member of the drama society. He then undertook an MA in contemporary literature at Birmingham University. Career Writing and producing Graham began his writing career in 1966 when his play Aberfan, Or How The Abnormally High Welsh Rainfalls and the Amazingly High Scottish Wind Pressure Brought About A Dislocation of Scottish And Welsh Responsibilities (or more succinctly, Aberfan) was performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The play interwove the stories of two disasters: the Aberfan colliery disaster and the Tay Bridge disaster, was performed mainly by children and received a rave notice in The Scotsman. His second play An Expedition to Pick Mushrooms was staged in 1967, also at the Traverse Theatre. In 1968 Graham became a researcher and writer for the television sports documentary series Sports Arena, which was presented by Michael Parkinson. In 1974 Graham wrote the screenplay for the horror film Shanks, directed by "Hollywood B-movie veteran" William Castle and starring Marcel Marceau. It was "generally acknowledged as the weirdest project ever to emerge from a major studio" and was critically panned. The next year Graham co-wrote a television movie, Strange New World and started to make his career in crime dramas, writing for The Sweeney. In all, he contributed six episodes between 1975–78: "Queen's Pawn", "Cover Story", "Supersnout", "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (all 1975), "Lady Luck" (1976) and "Nightmare" (1978). Graham was chosen as the screenwriter of the first film spin-off of the series, Sweeney!, which was released in 1977. The film's producer Ted Childs commented: “I felt that he had a cinematic understanding that not all television writers had ... It needed to have a larger than life quality, which Ranald was able to bring to it." Graham went on to write for The Professionals, contributing five episodes between 1978 and 1982: "Blind Run" and "Fall Girl" (both 1978), "Wild Justice" (1980), "Operation Susie" and "Lawson's Last Stand" (both 1982). The Professionals saw Graham at his most abrasive: the elite CI5 crime-fighting squad used bad language and wildly underhand methods. Bodie and Doyle were hard, gritty and unlovable. But the public watched in their millions. Graham explored the tension between Bodie and Doyle perfectly and then played them off against Jackson's more benign – but equally hard – supremo. Graham's scripts brought an unerring earthiness that equally shocked and entertained. In 1980