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DEREK WILSON A Writer's Life Three decades ago, at the end of a seven year stint teaching, travelling, broadcasting and writing text books in Kenya, Derek bundled his wife and three small children into a car, journeyed by ship to Karachi and then drove overland back to England and a new life as a full-time author. Since then he has devoted himself, as he says, to 'telling stories'. There have been several kinds of stories and several kinds of telling. Some have been factual – biographies and studies of intriguing past events. Some have been fictional – for the most part crime stories. Some have been tales told on radio or television in the form of plays and documentaries. Others have been presented to live audiences – narratives that have kept hearers enthralled and often challenged their preconceived ideas. In whatever medium Derek works his objective is always the same: 'My attitude is "Hey, folks, I've discovered something fascinating. May I tell you about it?"' Because Derek's interests and enthusiasms are wide the subject matter of his stories is diverse – the sagas of fabulously wealthy families, 18th century witchcraft, the building of the Channel Tunnel, murder in Renaissance Florence, the love affair of Robert Dudley and Queen Elizabeth I. His varied projects have given him and continue to give him a great deal of fun. He has interviewed the Prince of Wales (for a programme on adventure training), sailed on a tall ship (for a book on Drake's circumnavigation), wined and dined at Bordeaux chateaux and Parisian mansions (for his study of the Rothschilds) and been admitted to the secret archives of Interpol. Today he lives in Devon and makes frequent forays to a secluded retreat
in Normandy. These locations enable him to indulge his sundry passions
– exploring on Exmoor, French food and wine, helping new writers ('because
I've been there and I know how tough it is'), speaking at literary events,
driving old 'character' cars, travelling, and full involvement in the
life of his church. His latest pioneer venture is the organisation of the Cambridge History Festival. He realised that, thanks largely to TV, history had attracted a large new following. It became obvious that the subject merited its own annual festival. The annual event was established in 2003 and among those who have appeared since then are David Starkey, the National Portrait Gallery, Lindsey Davis, Louis de Bernières, Felipe Fernàndez-Armesto, Tracy Chevalier, Richard Holmes, Dan and Peter Snow, Prunella Scales, the Victoria and Albert Museum and a host of other celebrity authors and TV presenters. To register your name with the festival, go to www.histfest.com. And the future? 'There's still a lot to
do,' he says, 'and so many stories still to be told.' |