Francis Beckett – författare

First published in 2004, this book tells the stories of four remarkable British women, whose lives were scorched by Stalin’s purges. One was shot as a spy; one nearly died as a slave labourer in Kazakhstan; and two saw their husbands taken away to the gulag and had to spirit their small children out of the country.

We think of the horrors of the middle of the twentieth century- the Holocaust in Central Europe, the purges in the Soviet Union- as something foreign: terrible, but remote. Rosal Rust, Rose Cohen, Freda Utley, and Pearl Rimel were all Londoners. Like hundreds of young, idealistic Britons in the 1930s, they looked to the Soviet Union for inspiration, for a way in which society could be run better, without the exploitation and poverty which unrestrained capitalism had created. They were less fortunate than most of us: they saw their dreams fulfilled.

In this book, Francis Beckett draws on personal letters, interviews with surviving relatives and archivists to create a picture of four courageous, intelligent, and very different women. The result is a harrowing human document with vivid and unforgettable insights into the world of Stalin’s Russia: its secret trials, labour camps, random disappearances, and concealed executions.

First published in 2004, this book tells the stories of four remarkable British women, whose lives were scorched by Stalin’s purges. One was shot as a spy; one nearly died as a slave labourer in Kazakhstan; and two saw their husbands taken away to the gulag and had to spirit their small children out of the country.

We think of the horrors of the middle of the twentieth century- the Holocaust in Central Europe, the purges in the Soviet Union- as something foreign: terrible, but remote. Rosal Rust, Rose Cohen, Freda Utley, and Pearl Rimel were all Londoners. Like hundreds of young, idealistic Britons in the 1930s, they looked to the Soviet Union for inspiration, for a way in which society could be run better, without the exploitation and poverty which unrestrained capitalism had created. They were less fortunate than most of us: they saw their dreams fulfilled.

In this book, Francis Beckett draws on personal letters, interviews with surviving relatives and archivists to create a picture of four courageous, intelligent, and very different women. The result is a harrowing human document with vivid and unforgettable insights into the world of Stalin’s Russia: its secret trials, labour camps, random disappearances, and concealed executions.

First published in 2010, this book explores the legacy of the baby boomers: the generation who, born in the aftermath of the Second World War, came of age in the radical sixties where for the first time since the War, there was freedom, money, and safe sex.

In this book, Francis Beckett argues that what began as the most radical-sounding generation for half a century turned into a random collection of youthful style gurus, sharp-toothed entrepreneurs and management consultants who believed revolution meant new ways of selling things; and Thatcherites, who thought freedom meant free markets, not free people. At last, it found its most complete expression in New Labour.

The author argues that the children of the 1960s betrayed the generations that came before and after, and that the true legacy of the swinging decade is in ashes.

First published in 2010, this book explores the legacy of the baby boomers: the generation who, born in the aftermath of the Second World War, came of age in the radical sixties where for the first time since the War, there was freedom, money, and safe sex.

In this book, Francis Beckett argues that what began as the most radical-sounding generation for half a century turned into a random collection of youthful style gurus, sharp-toothed entrepreneurs and management consultants who believed revolution meant new ways of selling things; and Thatcherites, who thought freedom meant free markets, not free people. At last, it found its most complete expression in New Labour.

The author argues that the children of the 1960s betrayed the generations that came before and after, and that the true legacy of the swinging decade is in ashes.

John Beckett was a rising political star. Elected as Labour''s youngest M.P. in 1924, he was constantly in the news and tipped for greatness.

But ten years later he was propaganda chief for Mosley’s fascists, and one of Britain’s three best known anti-Semites.

Yet his mother, whom he loved, was a Jew. Her ancestors were Solomons, Isaacs and Jacobsons, originally from Prussia.

He successfully hid his Jewish ancestry all his life – he said his mother’s family were "fisher folk from the east coast." His son, the author of this book, acclaimed political biographer and journalist Francis Beckett, did not discover the truth until John Beckett had been dead for years.

He left Mosley and founded the National Socialist League with William Joyce, later Lord Haw Haw, and spent the war years in prison, considered a danger to the war effort.

For the rest of his life, and all of Francis Beckett’s childhood, John Beckett and his family were closely watched by the security services. Their devious machinations, traced in records only recently released, damaged chiefly his young family.

This is a fascinating and brutally honest account of a troubled man in turbulent times.

John Beckett was a rising political star. Elected as Labour''s youngest M.P. in 1924, he was constantly in the news and tipped for greatness.

But ten years later he was propaganda chief for Mosley’s fascists, and one of Britain’s three best known anti-Semites.

Yet his mother, whom he loved, was a Jew. Her ancestors were Solomons, Isaacs and Jacobsons, originally from Prussia.

He successfully hid his Jewish ancestry all his life – he said his mother’s family were "fisher folk from the east coast." His son, the author of this book, acclaimed political biographer and journalist Francis Beckett, did not discover the truth until John Beckett had been dead for years.

He left Mosley and founded the National Socialist League with William Joyce, later Lord Haw Haw, and spent the war years in prison, considered a danger to the war effort.

For the rest of his life, and all of Francis Beckett’s childhood, John Beckett and his family were closely watched by the security services. Their devious machinations, traced in records only recently released, damaged chiefly his young family.

This is a fascinating and brutally honest account of a troubled man in turbulent times.

A controversial new investigation in the 1984 Miners strike and how it changed Modern Britain.

The Miners'' strike was a dividing line in Modern British history. Before 1984, Britain was an industrial nation, reborn from the ashes of the Second World War by Clement Atlee''s vision of a welfare state. Most of the great industries were nationalised and the trade unions was one of the major forces in the land. After the strike, which ended with humiliating defeat in March 1985, Thatcher''s Britain was born.

In March 1984, the leader of the Miners'' Union, Arthur Scargill, led his members out of the pits without a ballot to protest at planned pit closures; they would spend the next 13 months facing the utmost deprivations as they fought to keep their jobs. On picket lines the miners faced harassment and the police, which culminated in the violent Battle of Orgreave. Meanwhile Thatcher''s government feared that Britain was on the verge of a civil war. It was a struggle of attrition that neither side could dare lose.

Twenty five years after the strike, the debate is still controversial. Marching to the Faultline tells the full story of the strike from confidential cabinet meetings at Downing Street to backroom negotiations, and life on the picket line. The book draws on previously unseen sources from interviews with the major figures, private archives and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to set the record straight.