Selected articles
People of the Gardens: Five generations of the Rochford Family
Whether for real or in their imagination they looked back to a 14th-century heyday when they were in possession of slender tower-castles in the West of Ireland
Visit to the Palestine Exploration Fund, 2020
It was the first such survey and remains a lodestone of dispassionate information in a still all too passionate landscape.
Exhibition review: “Forgotten Empire - The World of Ancient Persia”, at the British Library, 2005
Why did Alexander, who would burn Persepolis to the ground and incinerate whole libraries of sacred literature, cry at the tomb of the Cyrus?
Exhibition review: “The Prince and the Pyramids, Cairo to Constantinople”, an exhibition of Francis Bedford photographs at Holyrood Palace and Buckingham Palace
The Egypt leg of the Prince’s trip is the most unchanged of all. I speak with very recent knowledge, having just returned from a slow cruise down the Nile with three Mrs Rogerson’s in one boat
Exhibition review: “Living with Gods & Imagining the Divine” at the British Museum and Ashmolean"
It shows us how the artists of the Late Roman Empire played around with various heroic options before bearded Zeus-Jupiter was recast as the face of Christ.
After the Death of the Masters: Travel Writing after Wilfrid Thesiger and Norman Lewis
While Emma ends up defending a tribal slaughter perpetuated by her husband, her professionally minded ex-colleagues (there to feed the starving) go on strike when their regular supply of air-freighted meals is suspended.
Norman Lewis (1908-2003)
He was also a crack shot and a determined and successful lover of women – to the extent that at one period of his life, he was running three separate ‘establishments’.
Michael Jacobs (1952-2013)
Michael was always a brilliant communicator, which he could do perched at a bar, in a university lecture hall, slumped across a sofa after midnight or at an international literary festival.
Bosphorus Review interviews Barnaby Rogerson
We love stumbling across wisdom in all the different ages of humankind, and try to avoid falling into the trap that our contemporary culture is any significant way, wiser than that of our ancestors.
Andrew Graham-Yool (1944-2019)
He was not interested in contracts, systems or office hours, but accepted the dictats of a deadline and a mission with absolute conviction.
Jan Morris (1926-2020)
Jan had been thrown out of the Club after changing her sex. “Nothing to do with wearing skirts” and then her noble head rolled back and roared with laughter at the memory of it.
Bruce Wannell (1952-2020)
Bruce had enthusiasm, he had stamina, he had knowledge, he had an ear and a delight for music, language and poetry. What he did not have was any money or any interest in making it, let alone submitting to the slavery of a salary.
Michael Haag (1943-2020)
We would all agree, that one of the most acute pleasures of the traveller with time on his hands is reading the right book in the right place – discovering stories in the landscape in which they were written
John Freely (1926-2017)
John was expelled from his Brooklyn high school (scoring 0% in all subjects except for the humanities in which he scored 100%) and seemed destined to become cannon fodder.
Juliet Crawley - Mrs Dominic Vergos - Mrs Rory Peck
my most enduring memory of her is right at the end of her life, supremely elegant in tight trousers and surrounded by male admirers, horses, books, projects and her two beloved children. She was back on some sort of vegan-like diet, specified by a guru, but otherwise on conversational full throttle
Bookblogger interviews Barnaby Rogerson
We look for books that have been written with inner conviction and truth about the world. We want them to observant of others, capable of summing up a spirit of place and catching the moment on the wing.
Francis Yeats-Brown (1886-1944)
What undoubtedly gave him the greatest pleasure however was being allowed to talk to Gandhi on a long, dawn walk through the deserted streets of London.
Geoffrey Gorer (1905-1981)
… one of the most searing criticisms of the bleak reality of French colonialism to have ever been published.
Lewen Weldon (1875-1958)
… on his own initiative, Lewen had collected together a dossier on all the fresh-water wells in the deserts of Egypt. Discrete observation of these wells would enable the British to track any foreign intelligence service trying to operate within Egypt.
Bob Chenciner (1945-2021)
Bob always looked healthy and happy, like some vision of a well-fed monk from England’s golden past.