For some time, my family and friends have been pressing me to write a book about my personal and career life in Australia and the United Kingdom. I’ve already written three books and contributed to others since retiring from the BBC but at the advanced age in my late 80s, I didn’t feel I had the energy to do another one.
This is my compromise: I am progressively writing chapters on this platform, Substack, beginning with my birth and early days growing up in the Australian bush. I became a rural newspaper editor at 20, switching to radio at 3BO Bendigo and 3AW Melbourne, then to London where I rose up the ranks of BBC World Service radio and television at Bush House. This was followed by a period of teaching TV journalism and pontificating in the print media. I also have several screenplays awaiting some brave producers with millions of dollars to risk. All being well, I will be around long enough to produce chapters covering all these periods, then maybe they can be pulled together in a book by me or someone else.
The chapters are based on the letters I wrote to my family. These were all kept by my mother who returned them to me just before she died in her 90s. Without them I would not have been able to able to proceed with the memoir with any confidence or accuracy.
You are most welcome to join me on this journey, reading the chapters as I write them. I hope you will find them interesting and amusing. Here’s what I have written so far: https://iandrichardson.substack.com/archive
The chapters are free, by the way, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
