Biography

Born in Wrotham,Kent,England. Father – Scottish  /  Mother: Welsh.

Primary Education: Wood Vale Children’s Home,London, SE27,previously known as ‘The Lambeth School’ ( most famous pupil: Charlie Chaplin).It was closed down in the 1980’s & replaced by housing.

Secondary Education: Woolverstone Hall School (Near Ipswich,Suffolk). An innovative London County Council (LCC) Residential Grammar School described at the time as ‘The Poor Man’s Eton’. It is now part of Ipswich High School.

Undergraduate at Magdalen College,Oxford (1963-66). Journalist for ‘Cherwell’, the University newspaper. News Editor of ‘Isis’,the University magazine – owned at the time by Robert Maxwell,the ‘media magnate’ and Mirror Group Proprietor who disappeared in (still) unexplained circumstances  off the side of his yacht in the Mediterranean (1991).

In the USA (summer 1966) covered the Beatles press conference at the Warwick Hotel,New York ( following John Lennon’s controversial “We are more famous than Jesus Christ’’remarks),interviewed jazz legend Lionel Hampton and reported on the student demonstrations at the Berkeley UCLA campus,California.

Back in London,joined ‘Envoy’ magazine – a glossy coffee-table publication run by Logan Gourlay, a (then) high-profile writer for the Beaverbrook Group (who published the Daily & Sunday Express).

Subsequently went freelance.combined with role as lecturer for the Workers’ Education Association(WEA) and Founder/Editor of the WEA publication ‘New Clarion’. Reported for New Statesman,The Guardian & Agence-France Presse on (among other events) the student uprising in Paris (1968) and the suppression by Warsaw Pact forces of the ‘Prague Spring’.

From 1973-74 was BBC World Service correspondent in Caracas,Venezuela & lectured in English Literature at the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Baruta (just outside Caracas). On returning to the UK, set up London Study Centre, a Language College in West London to cater for overseas students with limited means wishing to follow English courses in the capital. Founded & edited ‘The EFL Gazette’,the newspaper of the EFL profession.

Reverted to free-lance journalism as from December 2006. Currently: Columnist with ‘ExpressNews’ Latin American weekly newspaper based in London,correspondent for ‘World News Network’ (USA), Associate Editor of ‘Live in London’ magazine and contributor to ‘Music Maker’ monthly publication .Also play the Venezuelan & Paraguayan harps with ‘Bahareque’,the Latin-American Rhythms Band. Languages: Spanish,Italian,French & some German.

Posted on April 18th, 2008 by Colin D Gordon

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