Ion Trewin – författare

The unknown life of Alan Clark, celebrated diarist, womaniser, Tory MP and controversial minister in Mrs Thatcher''s governments.Celebrated diarist, famous womaniser, Tory MP and controversial minister - a castle-owning toff and lecherous cad to some, to others a colourful and life-enhancing figure - Alan Clark was politically incorrect before the term was invented. He is best remembered for his sensational diaries - but what of the man? Alan Clark rarely spoke about his upbringing, even to his family. Was it as unhappy as he hinted? Ion Trewin has had unrestricted access to extensive family papers (including twenty years of unpublished diaries). He has talked to politicians, to those who knew him at the prep school which burnt down, to friends at Eton and Oxford, and to some of the many women he found impossible to resist despite a loving marriage of forty-one years. From his struggles to teach himself to write to formidable historian and diarist, from his enthusiasm for Margaret Thatcher to the ''drunk at the Commons dispatch box'' affair, ALAN CLARK THE BIOGRAPHY is a revealing and absorbing account of a remarkable and unforgettable man.

Some of the most talked about books of recent years, Alan Clark''s diaries provide a witty and irreverant insider''s account of political life in Britain. Now in one volume.''From the moment the first scabrous and brilliant volume was published, people wanted more. Now they have it and they will not be disappointed... These diaries are not wonderful simply because they show a politician unafraid to say what he thinks, and refusing to suck up to those whom he represents. They are great because they show all sides of a man who was, within his complex personality, arrogant, sensitive, loyal, unfaithful, patriotic, selfish, selfless, and - at all times - completely Technicolour'' Simon Heffner, DAILY MAIL

The second volume of Alan Clark''s bestselling DIARIES, covering the downfall of Margaret ThatcherThe first volume of Alan Clark''s diaries, covering two Parliaments during which he served under Margaret Thatcher - until her ousting in a coup which Clark observed closely from the inside - and then under John Major, constitute the most outspoken and revealing account of British political life ever written. Cabinet colleagues, royalty, ambassadors, civil servants and foreign dignitaries are all subjected to Clark''s vivid and often wittily acerbic pen, as he candidly records the daily struggle for ascendancy within the corridors of power.