He was a founder member of Simple Minds but he quit the band before they became international superstars and now lives a largely anonymous life in the little village of Kilmun in Argyll.

Three decades after the momentous split with Jim Kerr and company, John Milarky finally looks set to make a major impression on the world of showbiz at the age of 48 - as a film writer.

Glasgow-born Milarky has beaten entrants from all over the world to win a top international screenplay award, which will take him to Hollywood and put his film on the fast track to box-office success.

Already his screenplay The Strangest Thing is being compared by Variety, the leading film industry trade magazine, to It's a Wonderful Life, the all-time Christmas classic starring James Stewart.

The Strangest Thing is also set at Christmas and, like Frank Capra's timeless heart-warmer, focuses on the difference one individual can make to the lives of others. But while Capra's 1946 film was set in the fictional town of Bedford Falls, New York, The Strangest Thing is set in Scotland at the end of the 19th century.

Destiny has determined that the film's protagonist, Nolan, should die in a train crash, but he escapes unharmed. To rectify this "blunder", the Angel of Death comes calling for him.

But the angel gets caught up in the fate of Nolan's home town of Rathbeg. The little Highland town is threatened by an evil landlord and the angel finds it increasingly difficult not to intervene, gradually becoming humanised by the experience.

Milarky was nominated by Scottish Screen for the Hartley Merrill International Screenwriting Prize, endowed by American film mogul Ted Hartley and his wife, actress and socialite Dina Merrill.

Past winners have had a remarkable success rate, with 39 of the 51 winning screenplays being made into films.

Milarky was a founding member of Simple Minds in 1977. They started off as a punk outfit known as Johnny and the Self Abusers, and Kerr and Milarky shared vocal duties. But there were tensions from the outset and he left at the end of that year, not long after the change of name.

He watched from a distance as Simple Minds became one of the biggest pop groups of the 1980s. Kerr is estimated to have made about £50m from the band.

If all goes well, the film is likely to be shot in the Highlands next year.