FROM annotated drafts of the scripts for Alfie and Spring and Port Wine to a series of imposing looking metal boxes containing his diaries, painted with the grand title W.J.Naughton and strictly not to be opened until 2015, the Bill Naughton archive at Bolton Museum is a treasure-trove for Naughton enthusiasts.

Artefacts including programmes from productions of his plays and even Bill’s invitation to the London premiere of the film of Alfie all offer a fascinating insight into the writer’s life.

The vast collection of drafts of screenplays, complete with Naughton’s own revisions, corrections and notes are a gift for scholars, but it is the notebooks showing his writing process which are truly invaluable.

From learning to write and his early days working in the weaving shed to his thoughts on Lowry, the acting trade to collections of Lancashire expressions the notebooks chronicle the way the writer’s mind worked. Many of them also contain research and ideas which later became some of his best-known plays and stories.

Not only the well-known plays have been stored, but also his works for children, such as My Pal Spadger, along with a set of charming proofs of illustrations by Charles Mosley for A Dog Called Nelson.

The biggest mystery lies in the big black metal boxes. Although the archivists know that they contain Naughton’s journals, which he wrote in secret, they do not know the exact contents of them as they are forbidden to open the boxes until 2015. Despite the extensive notebooks and other artefacts he left behind it seems that some aspects of Naughton’s life will, for now at least, remain a mystery.