Margaret Crick Online - Articles
Below are links to some of the articles I have written. To view the full articles you will need the Adobe PDF reader. If you don't already have it get it HERE FREE:
Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes is one of England 's leading authors. He has written ten novels, and several books of short stories and essays and has received a number of prestigious international awards and honours including being made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He is a modern languages graduate and worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary, as the literary editor of the New Statesman; and as a television critic for the Observer. His first book was Metroland in 1981 and his most recent was Arthur & George; he also writes as Dan Kavanagh. More... »
Bill Bryson lives in Norfolk and has just been made President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). He hopes to use his new position to do something about litter. Bryson was a sub editor on a financial magazine before becoming a best-selling author. He has written numerous travel books including Notes from a Small Island and an award-winning science book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. He recently published a memoir of his childhood in Iowa, The Thunderbolt Kid, which explores the world of 1950s America. Although he can't write without a keyboard, he dislikes email and his mobile phone is ten years old. His hobbies include reading and gardening. More...»
Five minutes before the end of a Varsity rugby match in 1959 a confident young Oxford forward emerged from a scrum and remarked to his pack leader, "We're going to win this, Steve." "Not if you don't get your arse across that field we won't!" came the tart reply. Little did the player know he was addressing a future Cabinet Secretary but the two are still close. "Rugby created friendships which have lasted all my life," says Lord Butler of Brockwell. "When you've shared a communal bath and wallowed in deep mud, there is a bond!" More...»
Peter CarringtonLord Carrington emerges from his lovely 17 th-Century manor house in the village of Bledlow, with a devoted Sir Edward Heath running protectively in front of him. Edward Heath is a dachshund, and all the Carringtons' dogs are named after prime ministers. Visitors often ask if there's one called Margaret, but Carrington is too polite to say he doesn't normally have bitches, although he was recently given one he renamed Hilda (Thatcher's middle name). More...»
Some years ago, Ken Clarke's son returned from a holiday in Florida bringing his father a present from Disney World: a coffee mug displaying a picture of Grumpy, one of the Snow White's Seven Dwarves. "But it's the wrong dwarf!" exclaimed Clarke. Surely he couldn't have expected Bashful or Doc? "I would have been more annoyed with Dopey," Clarke says now. "But he should have brought Happy!" Clarke sees himself as exceptionally laid back, relaxed and stress free. But his son insists he got the right mug. More...»
At the height of the violent Wapping dispute between print workers and Rupert Murdoch, Brenda Dean got a letter from a wellwisher saying, 'You seem such a sensible person. How did you get mixed up with that lot?' 'I do love a challeng!' she says merrily. One might imagine that her role as the first woman to head a major industrial trade union (SOGAT 82) was challenge enough, but Dean is still full of beans, with a girlish laugh and hint of mischief at odds with her demure image. Now 64 and Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, she confesses she's always wanted to switch on the Blackpool Illuminations. More...»
Timothy Everest
The door to the Georgian house in Spitalfields is opened by a well-built looking man with designer stubble. Or maybe it's just that he's had a very late night, as he later admits. He is Adrian, a former bouncer and Welsh Guardsman, who is the sales manager in this wonderland of interior design and bespoke clothing. We are in the house that the young tailor Timothy Everest chose eleven years ago as a discreet hideaway for his influential and affluent customers, among whom is the man who might be the next Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his Conservative opponent, David Cameron. More...»
Wally Fawkes (Trog)Wally Fawkes, the political cartoonist Trog, had an oldie moment recently when he was at the doctor's surgery for his flu jab. "I was in the waiting room with a lot of slightly apprehensive elderly people in various stages of decay when over the speakers came a faint sound of music. Suddenly the Nelson Riddle strings filled the room and the next thing we heard was Sinatra singing, And Now the End is Near. We all looked at each other and exploded with mirth." More...»
Bruce Kent has been involved with CND for more than 45 years and was forced to resign from the priesthood because of his commitment to the movement. Born in England of Canadian parents, he was educated at Stonyhurst and Brasenose College, Oxford, before becoming ordained in 1958 and then parish priest in north London and University Chaplain. He eventually married. In 1992 he unsuccessfully contested Oxford West for Labour but left the party on the day Blair said he would use nuclear weapons. He has written an autobiography, Undiscovered Ends, and enjoys walking and friends. His answer machine says, 'Please speak slowly, we are elderly', and he doesn't know his own mobile number. More...»
London-born Warren Mitchell claims to have cornered the market in elderly Jewish-American roles, though he is best known as Alf Garnett from the television programme Till Death Us Do Part. A RADA trained actor who has won two Olivier awards (both for Arthur Miller plays) Mitchell was just seven when he first had acting lessons. He joined the RAF while still at school, trained to be a navigator and can still remember his number: 3001164 Sir! His physical chemistry degree course at Oxford University was curtailed by the war, after which he was encouraged in his acting career by Richard Burton. More...»
Desmond Morris is puzzling over the cover of his new book The Naked Man, a study of the male body. It shows a black and white photo of a rather curvaceous and feminine looking back. 'Is it male enough?' ponders the author; his wife has already told him that only women and gay men will be interested in buying a book with such a title.
Desmond Morris might have done better to draw the cover himself, or even get a chimp to do it for him. He is a sought-after and accomplished surrealist artist as well being better known to several generations as an expert on animal and human behaviour. More...»
Elaine Paige, aka the First Lady of British Musical Theatre, is a Hertfordshire-born actress, recording artist and producer who made her first professional appearance in the Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd and her West End debut in the sixties rock musical Hair. In 1978 she was chosen for the role of Eva Peron in Evita and later starred in Cats. She has won many awards, performed all over the world and has had 8 gold albums. She is currently playing the title role in The Drowsy Chaperone, in the West End. More...»
Speed Dating
Who would have thought that I'd be going Speed Dating in my fifties? Certainly not me, but then a marriage break-up has changed my life a lot. "You'll meet somebody else," said my departing spouse, "but you'll have to try very hard." What an insult! I was sought-after enough before I married, I thought indignantly. Not a queue of men on bended knee, exactly, but no shortage of admirers. Of course I could still attract men; I just didn't want to have to try hard. But I quickly found out he was right. More...»
Jimmy Webb
In his younger days, Jimmy Webb once wrote a song for a girl in England he was in love with, but she told him, 'Don't be silly'. The 'silly' song later became a huge hit in 1973 - All I Know - sung by Art Garfunkel. Silly girl. Jimmy Webb is now wealthy, successful, famous and still writing love songs, but not for her. More...»
