Current Affairs, Radio: Sony Gold Award for Studio editor with family name Grey

Tuesday 10 May 2011: At last night's Sony Radio Awards ceremony in London, a coveted top Gold Award was won by the Radio 5 Live daily "Drive" programme team headed by presenters Peter Allen and Aasmah Mir, chief political correspondent John Pienaar, and studio editor Lucy Grey. They stole the honours in the Best Breaking News Coverage category for the programme retrospectively named Birth of the Coalition.

"Drive" which usually goes out daily from 4pm to 7pm on BBC Five Live was extended to run for five consecutive hours until 9pm on the dramatic day Gordon Brown suddenly decided without warning to tender his resignation in a meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace following several days of uncertainty and behind-the-scenes wrangling among the three main political parties after the inconclusive General Election. This triggered a tumult of events which Drive covered with consistent brilliance as they happened, often reporting and backgrounding crucial developments, as the head of BBC Five Live later noted, well in advance of the running television news. The outcome was today's Conservative Liberal democrat coalition government.


What the Judges said of Drive that day : A perfect example of this programme at the top of its game, telling a fast-moving story with style verve, insight and humour. The presenters excelled at reacting to events and were superb guides for the listener as they explained the complexities of the story in an informed and entertaining way.


Why should all this be mentioned here at this juncture on my personal blog ? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the family name of the studio editor of the day was Grey (Lucy) who also sometimes reads the Five Live news and occasionally presents the daily dawn current affairs programme Morning Report? And that I have two lovely daughters one of whose names is Lucy? It is quite possible.

Anthony Grey, former presenter of BBC World Service programme Twenty Four Hours.

New Tagman Writers' Consortium Inaugurated

Tuesday 3 May 2011: Tagman Press, "the small publisher with the big heart" recently re-structured in Norwich, England following a de-merger, has taken a great leap forward by founding at the weekend -- on the day of the Royal Wedding -- what is believed to be a unique, new Tagman Writers' Consortium, writes Pamela Masters.

Twelve putative new Tagman writers -- by chance six female, and six male -- attended the inaugural round-table meeting under the chairmanship of Tagman's founder Anthony Grey in the boardroom at Reeds Restaurant, Tombland, just outside the main gate of the spectacularly beautiful Norwich Cathedral. The authors, over a five-hour period either side of lunch, talked in turn about their planned books of fiction, non-fiction, autobiography and poetry and discussed and investigated how they might collaborate constructively and support each other in this time of austerity, in the editing, design, proof reading and the public promotion of their traditional and e-books in both the conventional media and on the worldwide social networking circuits of the internet. Tagman, founded in l997, had been successfully merged with a digital print company in 2006 but has recently been returned to Anthony Grey's sole ownership, hence this new innovation among others.

At the inaugural meeting, Manchester-born, now London-based Gill Dalton, described the dramas and challenges of her powerful forthcoming autobiographical book Fearlessly Female that narrates her life from the time of her work as Peter Dalton, a petroleum engineer in Iran during the convulsive period of the overthrow of the Shah in the late 1970s, to her present status as an accomplished female writer and charity trustee. Thailand, Ireland and other countries figure in the background to this remarkable story.

Pauline and Dave Kelly outlined the genesis of A Pathway Back, the possibly true story of a hitherto unknown attempt to assassinate Hitler over a year before the ending of the Second World War. Dave Kelly is a specialist flint bricklayer working in Norfolk and his wife Pauline an experienced complimentary healer and psychic, helped him when he suddenly felt moved to write down in painstaking longhand, well-marshalled detailed information that began 'channelling' itself insistently to him several years ago. It purports to come individually from seven separate young US aircrew members mostly in their twenties, who angrily claim they were all treacherously shot down and killed when their unmarked B-17 bomber crashed in flames on the night of 10 February 1944 immediately after taking off from their airbase just outside Norwich -- but by their own Allied guns! They say they are seeking justice in the extraordinarily well ordered and professionally composed text that Dave Kelly admits he simply could never have composed himself. Intriguingly, some of the US aircrew names given in the 'channelled' text have been confirmed by the authors from local historical USAAF records

Hertfordshire-based screenwriter Robin Squire spoke wryly of his forthcoming dark-humour 'reality novel' The Making of a Britflick detailing a long-drawn out real-life drama which haunted the writing and production of a film on which he worked for several years. Paul Dickson and Illumine Nganemariya, joint Norwich-resident authors of Miracle in Kigali, the true story of Illuminee's extraordinary survival of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 individuals perished, explained why a completely new edition of the book is planned for later this year. Illuminee carried her new-born, days-old son Roger on her back throughout the four month trauma which saw her husband murdered -- and the new edition of her story is being extended to cover the remarkable recent sudden leap to film stardom by Norwich-educated Roger, now aged sixteen, in the new, internationally-successful feature film Africa United.

Yoga teacher Jane Aldiss confidently outlined her recently conceived plans for a non-fiction volume focusing on the deeper philosophy and origins of yoga rather than its purely physical aspects; psychotherapist Susan Culverwell from North London read and commented on samples of her own sanity-saving poetry which she began to write in the wake of personal emotional traumas of her own which confronted her recently out of the blue; Roger Chamberlain, a brave and gallant battler against multiple sclerosis over many years, entertainingly revealed how amusing, very well written stories about a small and endearing but slightly mystical disability vehicle called Hetty had sprung into his mind recently and had ever since been insistently demanding to be published.

Ealing-based international Public Relations specialist Michael Bland, who has had a dozen successful books published nationally in the past, proposed ideas for bringing out new editions of his humour books about appalling road users, originally entitled A Pig at the Wheel and A Bigger Pig at the Wheel, and Dr John Clements, a Norwich life strategist coach and specialist public speaker already published in the United States, revealed details of of his next UK book to be entitled Excellence Becomes You.

All participants afterwards hailed the experimental meeting as an overwhelming success - and a further meeting was scheduled for October this year. "It was a privilege to be a thorn among so many roses," commented Roger Chamberlain modestly on seeing the group photograph of the occasion on Facebook. " Apart from anything else, it gave me a great number of new ideas for my own writing." Jane Aldiss said of the gathering: "A truly wonderful and what felt auspicious meeting and every attendee was a pleasure to meet. It felt to me as a believer in karma that we are a bunch of old companions who have met a long time ago, and are now gathered again to crusade for the light." Gill Dalton said : "I felt honoured to have been there and to have shared the day with such beautiful and special people. As individuals we are unique and multi-talented. As a combined force we will be unstoppable !" Susan Culverwell commented: "For me it was good to meet with other writers and to listen to their experiences in the field. It is a talented, creative and I have to say spiritually-orientated group." Paul Dickson summed it up simply in four short words: "It was just brilliant"

See http://www.tagmanpress.co.uk.

Picture:
Back L to R: Dave Kelly, Pauline Kelly, Illuminee Nganemariya, Robin Squire, Pamela Masters, Michael Bland, John Clements. Front L to R: Paul Dickson, Susan Culverwell, Gill Dalton, Anthony Grey, Roger Chamberlain, Jane Aldiss.

Launch date for paperback of The Hostage Handbook by Anthony Grey

First hostage of the modern era publishes

extraordinary verbatim secret diaries of his ordeal for the first time.

On June 29 this year (2011) the paperback edition of The Hostage Handbook by Anthony Grey, will be formally launched by The Tagman Press with a series of events in Jersey in the Channel Islands, writes Robin Squire, one of Anthony's fellow authors at Tagman. (*Robin is author of the forthcoming Tagman reality novel Britflick)

Jersey was where Anthony lived for three years while recovering from his two-year hostage ordeal in China. A new 2011 edition of Anthony's first novel of eight to date, The Jersey Stratagem, which was written in and about Jersey, will also be simultaneously relaunched in the island at the same time.

The hardback edition of the The Hostage Handbook - verbatim extracts, with modern commenatary from the secret shorthand diaries Anthony somehow kept hidden from his Red Guard captors during his two years in solitary -- has already won deserved plaudits from distinguished individuals and fellow authors alike, including Sir John Weston, former British ambasador to the UN and NATO, who has said : "Tony came through his terrible and unjust ordeal with such dignity and largeness of soul ... and this real time journal gives a vivid picture of the afflictions he faced and the often mindless and inhumane behaviour of his captors "

John Weston was a junior diplomat at the Beijing embassy at the time and was himself along with his wife Sally and the rest of Britain's entire diplomatic corps in China, terrorised by 10,000 screaming Red Guards who burned their embassy down around their ears at midnight and subjected them to ruthless beatings and other indignities when they had to flee for their lives through the flames. "These diaries,' adds John Weston, 'reveal Tony's stubborn capacity for inventiveness and imagination during two years in solitary which created an inner space for his spirit's survival in spite of all."

"This is a remarkable publication,' says another Tagman writer, Paul Dickson, co-author with Illuminee Nganemariya of Miracle in Kigali, another extraordinary Tagman book describing how Illuminee, with a new born baby on her back, survived four horrific months at the heart of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people were slaughtered -- and came afterwards to live in England, in Norwich, determined to tell her story in the hope it might prevent repetition of such terrible and outrageous carnage. "Anthony's survival,' says Paul, 'like Illuminee's, teaches us better to appreciate our freedom and the familiar rhythms of life we should never take for granted."

Paul and Illuminee and her son Roger, who also miraculouly and unknowingly survived the genocide unscathed when just weeks old, will likewise be in Jersey at the end of June talking about a new updated hardcover edition of Miracle in Kigali to be published soon. Roger who is now sixteen and still a schoolboy in Norwich, obviously has no recollection of those very first weeks and months of his life -- but remarkably he has recently starred in a new and very successful feature film entitled Africa United about Rwanadan youngesters who get caught up in a dramatic picaresque journey while seeking to visit to the World Cup Finals in South Africa.

* Robin Squire, screenwriter and author of the forthcoming Tagman Press reality novel Britflick