After graduation in 1945, on the strength of a portfolio of poems sent to the editor Tom Hopkinson, he was offered a three-month trial at Picture Post in London, after which he was made a staff writer.
In January 1955, Tom Hopkinson, now features editor of the News Chronicle, invited him to write verses for the Saturday Picture.
Publishing these as John Ormond, thus establishing that as his professional name, he continued to contribute weekly verses for two and a half years.
In July 1955 Ormond began a career with BBC Wales in Cardiff, working with the fledgling news-service.
The success of Borrowed Pasture (1960), his portrait of two Polish exiles struggling to eke out a living on a derelict farm in Carmarthenshire, immediately established him as a film-maker.