Paul Atherton

Paul Atherton (born 20 March 1968) is managing director of Simple (TV) Productions and its sister not-for-profit company, Q&D Productions Limited. He is the first producer-director to have his work broadcast on the Coca-Cola billboard in Piccadilly Circus, London, with his film The Ballet of Change.

Atherton was three months old when he was abandoned in a tent at a disused airport in Cardiff but placed with a white foster family shortly after.

He grew up in the village of Ystrad Mynach in South Wales attending Lewis School Pengam until the age of 16.

He left home at 15, when he spent time in children's homes and completed his "O" Levels. At 16 he set up home on his own, against the wishes of Social Services . After a traumatic event at the age of 18 he became homeless and lived on the streets, but by 20 he'd recovered his life and bought his first flat.

At the age of 21, Atherton was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS, often called myalgic encephalomyelitis in the United Kingdom), and still suffers today.

He attended Cardiff Business School, and obtained a BSc Honours Degree in Business Administration as a mature student in 1994.

While studying he set up a mail order company specialising in silk lingerie called "A Touch of Silk".

He moved on to a career in public relations with Systems Publicity, Harvard Communications and finally Propeller Marketing where he Account Directed clients CNN, media buyers OMD (Omnicom Media Direction) and The Daily Telegraph.

His television career began at Prospect Pictures, working on their live five-day-a-week cookery programme Good Food Live before setting up his production companies in 2004.

In 2005 his first production Silent Voices, a docudrama about domestic violence, premiered on British television, based on the real-life accounts of children who had witnessed their parents being beaten.

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