Good day everyone,
I’m a learner driver at this Substack game, so please bear with me while I get on the road. As the former Puffer Nutter of the Daily Mirror, I’d be happier to be steam powered or on rails. But do please join me on my travels from the word lathe.
My time with the paper that calls itself ‘the Heart of the Nation’ was the culmination of 60 years in journalism, including long sentences on The Times, The Observer and the Independent On Sunday.
Most of the last three decades I spent working in the House of Commons, or more accurately the bars of Westminster, reporting and commenting on the antics of politicians - and sometimes in a gossip column for The New Statesman current affair magazine.
I also took time off from the drinking to write eight books of political biography, of Peter Mandelson, now Our Man In Washington, that earned him his first sacking from the Cabinet, and of Gordon Brown, which exposed the rift between the Chancellor and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But more recently Mirror readers have also been entertained by the goings on in our slice of provincial life - particularly the allotment, my pals at the Old White Bear and in the pantry of Mrs R, as my wife of 62 years Lynne is known. From here she masterminded her kitchen miracle, a Queen’s Jubilee trifle, while going for the record for exceeding food use-by dates.
I also have two wonderful daughters, two lovely grand-daughters and two amazing great grand-daughters.
A couple of years ago, I was rescued from death’s door by surgeons at Leeds General Infirmary, during a 10 hour operation to correct an aortic dissection.
My survival depends on the ministrations of the ‘pharmacist’ Mrs R.
For all this, writing is the best therapy.
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