The Author Archive Podcast

Edwina Currie - This Honorable House

Edwina Currie was a Tory MP from 1983 to 1997.

She became Junior Health Minister for 2 years and famously had an affair with John Major, who became Prime Minister. The relationship   lasted 4 years.

David Freeman met her when her novel This Honourable House was first published. Prior to this, and her second marriage she had written Chasing Men.

Interviewing Edwina I always had the feeling that she was very entertaining but was probably trouble.

In this conversation, she talks about her life and her books, but also revealingly about the Tory party that she used to be a part of. Times change??

Clive James

There is much thought about memoirs at the moment. Salt Paths etc.

Clive James wrote memoirs but he always declared they were 'unreliable'. Maybe that is the nature of memory and memoir?

Clive James died in 2019 after a long illness.

This conversation with David Freeman was recorded in 2001 when Clive was excited by the internet and somewhat fearful of the way public service broadcasting was heading.

He would probably be even more fearful now.

Listening to Clive James now it is clear that he had a very good grasp on what could happen in many spheres of life - and he really didn't approve.

Robert Winder - Three Rivers

This book is as exploration of the rich and varied cultural worlds shaped by the Rhine, the Rhone and the Po.

Three Rivers traces the rivers' journeys from their glacial sources through Germany, Itals and France.

Its an entertaining and informative story.

A great holiday read!

Julian Hoffman- Lifelines

Twenty five years ago Julian Hoffman and his wife Julia decided to leave their life in London and make a dramatic change. They would leave the city life with it's commuting hassles and move somewhere and live very different life

On nothing more than a chance encounter with a book about it they moved to Prespa in northern Greece.

They didn't speak the language, had very few possessions but their bold and brave decision has worked out very well.

They searched for home in the mountains of Greece.

How they found it is told in Lifelines.

Sir Martin Gilbert - Never Again - history of the Holocaust

 

The appalling inhumanity still happening in the world makes this conversation distressingly relevant. There is the thought that some people are less human then others. This has to be challenged.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on December 10th 1948.

We now live in a world where the rights agreed in that document are widely ignored and some politicians openly seek to remove the UK from enforcing them.

Plus racial intolerance is on the march . The horrible spectre of antisemitism is looming over the news as is denial of the rights of Palestinians. 

As an American bishop recently said ..... immigrants and gay people are as valuable as everyone else.

A good time to listen to the words of the late Sir Martin Gilbert.

Sir Martin Gilbert is known as Churchill's biographer, but also as the historian of the Holocaust.

This conversation with David Freeman took place when his book Never Again was published. Sir Martin's thoughts on war are sadly relevant.

Sir Martin died in 2015.

Tariq Ali - The Clash of Fundamentalisms : Christianity, Islam and Capitalism

The effect of the Trump win reverberates around the globe. There seems to be perceived electoral advantage in fanning hate and intolerance and spreading intolerance the idea around the world.

The Middle East is on a knife edge and the Ukraine war continues.

Why is this? Is there any cause for optimism? Where do non rational beliefs and convictions fit in the conflicts?

This conversation with the activist and thinker Tariq Ali was recorded soon after the outrage of 9/11.

There is a plan for the future in what Tariq was saying but I wonder if he is as optimistic today. Will rational thought and reasoned discussion bring peaceful coexistence?

Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day : Inventing Inspector Morse.

Colin Dexter was a splendid writer. His creation Inspector Morse is superb on the page and just as gripping on television.

I used to meet Colin in the pub on Banbury Road in Oxford, The Dew Drop. He was great company and almost completely unaware of his success and star quality.

I recorded this conversation in his house after the publication of The Remorseful Day. He was relaxed and very happy to look back at his life in education and crime writing.

Joe Boyd discusses his memoir, White Bicycles:Making Music in the 1960s and his literary journey through global music, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain.

Joe Boyd is a man about music, record producer, a film producer and author.

He arrived in London in 1964 with Muddy Waters and a host of blues musicians who played to sold out UK audiences when they were unappreciated in their US homeland.

In this conversation he talks about Nick Drake, Paul Simon, The Incredible String Band, Paul Butterfield, MIke Bloomfield and the enduring power of real music.

Joe is currently on tour in North America launching the American paperback.

A thought provoking podcast.

Paul Alexander : Bitter Crop - The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year

Billie Holiday, Eleanora Fagan  was born on April 7th 1915.

Bitter Crop is a superb biography of Billie Holiday who was probably the very best jazz singer there has ever been. The book title is takes from one of Billie's signature songs, 'Strange Fruit'.

There have been films and many books about Billie's career but not all of them came close to telling the whole truth of a remarkable life.

True there were drugs and alcohol but there was so mucah more than that. There was huge musical success and adulation -  Billie considered her life to be a triumph.

The conversation took place in July 2024 ..... 65 years after Billie died.

Ruth Werner - the Oxfordshire life of a remarkable Soviet spy.

Ruth Werner was born Ursula Kuczynski in Berlin.

She was appalled by Hitler and became a lifelong communist and a spy.  During the 1940s she lived around Oxford and radioed secrets to Russia.

Her spy codename was Sonja and her memoir was published as Sonja's Report. Ben MacIntyre wrote a best-selling biography of her ...Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy.

David Freeman spoke to her in Oxford.