John Birt was born in 1944 into a working-class Liverpool family. His father was battle-scarred by World War II and the household was run essentially by his mother and grandmother. Birt's grandfather, himself shell-shocked by the Great War, used to race pigeons and encouraged his grandson to perfom odd misdemeanours like peeing in his shoes. Educated by the Catholic Irish Christian brothers, Birt established a strong sense of duty early in life. After school he went to Oxford and experienced a profound culture shock, but by good luck he arrived just as Liverpool was becoming the trendiest city in Britain (post-Beatles). Joining the Granada World in Action team he quickly discovered his calling - and this book is about how he went on to use that ambition to become one of the most influential media figures in Britain. It's also full of colourful characters and anecdotes, from members of Birt's own family to Paul McCartney and Tony Blair. Far from being the grey man portrayed by the media, this book reveals Birt as a likeable, humorous man with a gift for self-deprecation and a vision for the future of broadcast journalism.
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Review
As the Director General of the BBC in a transitional period in the 1990s, John Birt did not exactly endear himself to everyone concerned with (or working for) that institution. This autobiography, currently 'embargoed' pre-publication by its publisher, seems designed to counter the image of its author as a grey man, or worse, by giving the inside story of his journey from working-class Liverpool in the 1940s to special advisorship to Tony Blair - via Oxford, Granada's World in Action, and a period as arguably one of the most influential broadcast media figures in Britain. It promises to reveal Birt as both 'likeable' and self-deprecatingly humorous - so the very wide review coverage it's sure to generate should be interesting.
About the Author
John Birt is now a special adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair. After a controversial and dynamic career in television culminating in the Director-Generalship of the BBC, he was made a Life Peer in 2000.
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