Selected articles
My Mother / Kathy's Youth
... on one memorable occasion we arrived home to find her racing around the garden in her car, apparently trying to run down my father
Spirit of Place
He remembered with documentary accuracy what an indifferent, if not bored and shirty, student he had been as both boy and young man, only interested in music, films, cigarettes, booze and girls.
Observing the Baring family
The first Lord Ashburton was a brilliant young diplomat who won over the hostile society of colonial America after the 1812 war and was arguably the first to establish the special relationship, sealing a new style of peace-making by taking an American girl home to be his wife.
Memorial address for Nico Rogerson, 1943-2017
Nico was always active, as close to Peter Pan as any mortal I have met. He lived life to the full, wonderfully alive to the moment, and forever charmed by the prospect of the next adventure.
John Baring - Lord Ashburton
John was knighted twice, built two country houses, was married twice, served as the Chairman of two great British institutions and helped establish two Country Operas. He had worked for the Prince of Wales and was a personal friend of the Queen. It is not a record that is likely to be equalled.
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.
Review: “The Only Minds Worth Winning” - T. E. Lawrence at The Imperial War Museum, 2005
He was also full of remorse at the staff job in Cairo that kept him safe for two whole years while two of his beloved brothers died in the trenches.
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?
Book review: “Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art”, by Peter Barber and Tom Harper - published and shown by the British Library, 2010
The meticulous bird’s-eye views of the streets and docks of Venice in 1500, Seville in the time of Philip II and Augsburg (caught mid-siege) in the reign of Emperor Charles V are like a species of time travel.
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.
Where travel writing is now
... like inspiring pin-pricks in the night sky, there are still travel books that keep shining and have kept generation after generation of readers enthralled.
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.