Francis Beckett
Author, journalist, broadcaster, contemporary historian
The 21st anniversary history of the 1984-5 miners' strike, Marching to the Fault Line by Francis Beckett and David Hencke, will be published in February 2009 by Constable and Robinson.
For a year, there were running battles between police and pickets, so that Britain looked like - and in a sense was - a nation in civil war. It was the moment Britain changed direction. Clement Attlee's Britain, with its welfare state, strong trade unions and large public sector, turned into Margaret Thatcher's Britain.
From newly opened records, from private diaries given to them exclusively, and from interviews with the leading figures, Beckett and Hencke have pieced together for the first time a full account of what really happened; what Thatcher and her cabinet were thinking and doing, and what the unions and the Labour Party were doing.
Francis Beckett's last two books were Gordon Brown - Past, Present and Future (Haus, June 2007) and The Great City Academy Fraud (Continuum, March 2007.) His Clem Attlee was republished in 2007 by Politicos.
His latest play, Money Makes You Happy, after a successful three week run at the Bridewell Theatre in Fleet Street, is being published by Samuel French in Autumn 2008, and another play, The Right Honourable Lady, will be published by Samuel French next year.
As well as writing books and plays, Francis Beckett writes regularly for national newspapers, and edits magazines including the national magazine published by the University of the Third Age.
Francis Beckett
Tel: 07813 001372
Tel: 0208 349 9194
francis@francisbeckett.co.uk
francisbeckett@cobeck.clara.co.uk
View my blog http://francisbeckett.blogspot.com