Friday 2 February 2007

Local writers - Joan Bakewell

Yes - it's the thinking man's crumpet, as Frank Muir called her. Joan Bakewell was born in the very same leafy part of Heaton Moor (Hooley Range) as I am writing this. She went to Stockport Convent and then on to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she met another local celebrity, Brian Redhead, and her future husband, Michael Bakewell. Of course she is best known as a broadcast journalist and presenter, and she has the distinction of having been sacked as the arts correspondent for Newsnight by no less than John Birt himself. She has written four plays for radio and three books. Her autobiography, The Centre of the Bed describes at length her affair with Harold Pinter, while he was still married to the actress Vivien Merchant and she was still married to Michael Bakewell. She currently writes for The Independent.

Labels: , ,