Caitlin Moran's life in Wolverhampton turned into TV sitcom

The newspaper columnist, who grew up in the city and was educated at home, has penned a pilot for a comedy called Raised By Wolves.

Working with her sister Caroline, the 38-year-old has based the programme around their life in a large family.

Mother-of-two Ms Moran said she wanted to tackle 'class presumption' about people living on benefits following Channel 4's gritty comedy drama Shameless.

She has also written a passionate defence of Britain's welfare system after it came under fire from some commentators in the wake of the jailing of Mick Philpott, who burned down his Derby council house, causing the deaths of six of his children.

The story for the pilot revolves around a family educating their six children at home in a council house in Wolverhampton.

Ms Moran and her sister were two of eight children who lived in a three-bedroom council house in Enville Road, Penn.

She attended Springdale Junior School and wrote her first book, The Chronicles of Narmo, at the age of 13, two years after she had been taken out of mainstream education, having attended secondary school for only three weeks.

She went on to work for Melody Maker and The Times, where she reviews TV and has a magazine column as well as taking a light-hearted look at the antics of celebrities.

At the age of 18 she presented a late night TV show called Naked City with music, gossip and news which ran for two series and featured a number of then up-and-coming British bands such as Blur, Manic Street Preachers, and the Boo Radleys. Her co-host was former Big Breakfast presenter Johnny Vaughan.

Ms Moran, a British Press Awards Columnist of the Year for 2010, and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011, and Interviewer of the Year 2011, has said in the past that she was not fond of her old home city.

"Living in Wolverhampton gives you an object in life – to get out as soon as possible", she said in 1993.

"Nothing happens there and you just get depressed.''

On the subject of the new comedy Ms Moran, who married The Times rock critic Peter Paphides in Coventry in December 1999, said: "People assume anyone living on a council estate and on benefits is some kind of feral, texting, druggy scum who's always cheerful and never scared, and just has a lot of sex in alleyways round the back of nightclubs.

"There are some, but there are in middle classes too – look at Prince Harry."

The sitcom is being overseen by Big Talk Productions.

The company also produced new ITV sitcom The Job Lot, set in the fictional Midland town of Brownall. The pilot will be shot in Manchester but details of the cast have not been revealed.

It is expected to be screened on Channel 4 in the autumn.

Ms Moran's 2011 book, How To Be A Woman, won Book of the Year in the Galaxy Book Awards.

It has sold more than 150,000 copies in the UK and hundreds of thousands around the world. In July 2012 she became a Fellow of the University of Aberystwyth.