Joan Bakewell has led a varied, sometimes breathless life: she has been a teacher, copywriter, studio manager, broadcaster, journalist, the government's Voice of Older People and chair of the theatre company Shared Experience. She has written four radio plays, two novels and an autobiography - The Centre of The Bed. Now in her 80s, she is still broadcasting. Though it may look as though she is now part of the establishment - a Dame, President of Birkbeck College, a Member of the House of Lords as Baroness Bakewell of Stockport - she's anything but and remains outspoken and courageous. In Stop the Clocks, she muses on all she has lived through, how the world has changed and considers the things and values she will be leaving behind. Stop the Clocks is a book of musings, a look back at what she was given by her family, at the times in which she grew up - ranging from the minutiae of life such as the knowledge of how to darn and how to make a bed properly with hospital corners, to the bigger lessons of politics, of lovers, of betrayal. She talks of the present, of her family, of friends and literature - and talks too of what she will leave behind. This is a thoughtful, moving and spirited book as only could be expected from this extraordinary woman.
Honest and intriguing ... beautifully written.'Observer 'Joan Bakewell was everywhere at every stage: reporting on the Cuban missile crisis, interviewing Allen Ginsberg and Vaclav Havel, taking chunks out of the Berlin Wall when it fell...draped in the kaftan of Sixties sophistication.' Independent on Sunday Joan Bakewell's life and times spans the Blitz in Manchester, Cambridge during the glittering era of Michael Frayn, Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller et al, London at its most exciting in the swinging sixties and the world of the media and the arts from the 60s to the present. As she reflects on the choices she has made and the influences that shaped her, she confronts painful childhood memories of her mother's behaviour and describes both her affair with Harold Pinter and her two marriages with remarkable honesty. Throughout she uses her own experience to explore the extraordinary change in women's roles during her lifetime. This is no ordinary celebrity autobiography but a memoir that is beautifully written, frank and absorbing, which draws a thought-provoking portrait of Britain in the last 70 years. Dame Joan Bakewell was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2019.
In this book, Joan Bakewell writes with characteristic honesty and humanity about life in one's seventies. From considering a mini-skirt instead of a mackintosh and learning how to use an Pod, to dreading the obituary pages for fear of finding a friend among them, The View from Here considers with wisdom and warmth the physical, social and psychological consequences of ageing. Joan also returns to issues that have always been close to her, including the nature of faith, what it means to be British and how we engage politically with the world around us. Her book combines personal history with cultural commentary to provide a one of the most disarming and up-to-date accounts yet published of life as an older person.
The story of Joan Bakewell's life and times spans the Blitz in Manchester, Cambridge during the glittering era of Michael Frayn, Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller et al, London at its most exciting in the swinging sixties and the world of the media and the arts from the 60s to the present. As she reflects on the choices she has made and the influences that shaped her, she confronts painful childhood memories of her mother's behaviour and describes both her affair with Harold Pinter and her two marriages with remarkable honesty. Throughout she uses her own experience to explore the extraordinary change in women's roles during her lifetime. This is no ordinary celebrity autobiography but a memoir that is beautifully written, frank and absorbing, which draws a thought-provoking portrait of Britain in the last 70 years.
It is 1942 and the war is not going well. As part of the war effort the Ashworth Grammar School for Girls signs up for the Merchant Navy's Ship Adoption Scheme. The headmistress, the lovely, essentially serious Cynthia Maitland, who lost her lover in the First World War, believes the idea will broaden the horizons of her girls, especially Polly and Jen, bright sixth formers eager to live and love despite it all. All is as it should be in the line of duty until Captain Josh Percival and his officers of the SS Treverran visit Ashworth . . . The choices that follow will disrupt all their lives, reverberating even to the next generation, when, decades later, life and love are on the line again.
In the BBC1 television series Heart of the Matter, in which she meets people who face moral dilemmas, Joan Bakewell draws attention to the shift in values in Britain. In this book she presents her personal, non-moralistic reactions to arguments that she has encountered.
What does it mean to 'kiss and part'? This collection of previously unpublished short stories from a stellar list of contemporary women novelists is a literary celebration of the spirit of place. Each contributor shares one thing in common - they have all stayed at a small cottage in the village of Clifford Chambers near Stratford-upon-Avon, courtesy of a trust set up to provide women writers with ‘a room of one’s own’, as Virginia Woolf put it. Clifford Chambers was the home of the Jacobean poet Michael Drayton, who incorporated the phrase ‘Kiss and part’ into a sonnet. Each of the ten short stories in this collection takes this as its theme and the result is wonderfully eclectic mix of storytelling of the highest quality. All royalties go the Hosking Houses Trust to further encourage women’s writing. Contents List Preface ‘Kiss and Part’ by Michael Drayton Introduction by Margaret Drabble Buck Moon Marina Warner ‘A Merrie Meeting’ Salley Vickers The Incumbent Elizabeth Speller ‘Colossal Wreck’ Maria McCann The Visitation Maggie Gee And the River Flows On Joan Bakewell The Creature Jill Dawson The Turn Catherine Fox The Fabric of Things Jo Baker ‘Place of Dreams’ Lucy Durneen The Writers Afterword by Sarah Hosking Acknowledgements of Photographs
Honest and intriguing ... beautifully written.'Observer 'Joan Bakewell was everywhere at every stage: reporting on the Cuban missile crisis, interviewing Allen Ginsberg and Vaclav Havel, taking chunks out of the Berlin Wall when it fell...draped in the kaftan of Sixties sophistication.' Independent on Sunday Joan Bakewell's life and times spans the Blitz in Manchester, Cambridge during the glittering era of Michael Frayn, Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller et al, London at its most exciting in the swinging sixties and the world of the media and the arts from the 60s to the present. As she reflects on the choices she has made and the influences that shaped her, she confronts painful childhood memories of her mother's behaviour and describes both her affair with Harold Pinter and her two marriages with remarkable honesty. Throughout she uses her own experience to explore the extraordinary change in women's roles during her lifetime. This is no ordinary celebrity autobiography but a memoir that is beautifully written, frank and absorbing, which draws a thought-provoking portrait of Britain in the last 70 years. Dame Joan Bakewell was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2019.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.