A second chance – that’s what I was being given when, having skirted death during that first round of Covid, I left hospital just over a year ago.
I was, I was told, only half way there. It would take … read more
John, Me and the Lancashire Treasure (Sunday Times, April 1980)
I learned the real meaning of gold fever when I was 13 – although in my case the fever was silver and came in the shape of 33 Roman coins dug out of the bed of a small stream on … read more
John, Me and the Lancashire Treasure (Sunday Times, April 1980) From Born At The Right Time by Ray Connolly
I learned the real meaning of gold fever when I was 13 – although in my case the fever was silver and came in the shape of 33 Roman coins dug out of the bed of a small stream on … read more
My Back Pages (An edited version of this article appeared in The Oldie, December. 2021)
What Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan, Lord Hailsham, Leonard Cohen, John Lennon, Roger Vadim, Michael Caine, Leonard Cheshire, Paul Raymond, Eric Morecambe, Mick Jagger, Terry Wogan, Elvis Presley, Dennis Hopper, David Attenborough, Tony Benn, Charlie Watts, Enoch Powell, Marc Bolan and … read more
When hitch-hiking was the only way to travel… (Daily Mail 10.10.19)
When I was 18 the only opportunity I had of foreign travel was to stand at the side of the road with my thumb out, and that was how I first saw the Mediterranean. I’d just sat my A-levels and … read more
Venice, Plum and a 50th Wedding Anniversary
Mail On Sunday. 27.11.16
Some couples celebrate their golden wedding anniversary by holding a feast for friends and family to show how successfully they’ve made it through the steeplechase of marriage. But that wasn’t for us.
Instead, Plum, my wife, … read more
Fifty Years On…a lifetime in Fleet Street ….
Fifty Years On …. or what Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Lennon, Michael Caine, Leonard Cheshire, Paul Raymond, Eric Morecambe, Mick Jagger, Terry Wogan, Elvis Presley, Dennis Hopper, David Attenborough, Lord Hailsham, Tony Benn, Charlie Watts, Enoch Powell, … read more
My Father’s Grave, France and me – a memoir
At high tide the waves from the Atlantic really rush in at Beg Legeur in Brittany’s Bay of Lannion. It’s a pretty little out of the way place, with its yellow gorse and scattered groups of French families; a good … read more
The Story of Plum and Me – Fifty Years On
Daily Mail 17.3.2016
Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. It must. How else can I understand that next on April 16, Plum and I will have been married for fifty years. It doesn’t seem possible. I always thought golden wedding … read more
Who Needs Editors? Everyone – Especially Bloggers
I appear to have rattled a few publishing cages with my recent Guardian article about my experiment in serialising my new novel The Sandman online on this site. That’s fair enough. Good to see my old friend and former editor … read more
