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
The Pickpocket And Me
Evening Standard, November 16, 2010
Having your pocket picked on the Tube might not seem like everyone’s idea of a good start to a day out, but in the end that’s exactly what it was.
It all began in mid-afternoon … read more
Pink Granite Coast
Mail On Sunday, 2010
My father never visited France—although he is buried in the tiny village of Servel, near Lannion, in Brittany. He was on his way to the Far East when he died in October 1944, the huge tank … read more
Christmas Carols
We’re hardly the best choir in London. We never rehearse and we only ever meet once a year when we sing Christmas carols in a shopping mall. And although we’re all English, we’re not exclusively Christian.
This year, for instance, … read more
A sunny May morning in Lymington
Daily Mail, 2006
I wore my Elvis socks the day my mother died. Made of black cotton with the name Elvis embroidered in silver thread across the ankles, I showed them to her when, waking on the morning of her … read more
