DO YOU KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOURS?
If I stayed in one place long enough to meet them I am sure I would get to know my neighbours. The trouble is, with my wandering spirit I am travelling too much and too often to get to meet the people who live nearest me. I always intend to knock on their doors when I return from my travels but then put off doing it with the excuse that I will probably be leaving again in a few weeks.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF ACCOMPLISHING SO FAR IN YOUR LIFE?
The obvious answer is that I am most proud of my three children. But as far as professional achievements are concerned, I am proud that my first book, “An Affair of State” became the number one best-seller. I am proud of having worked in Bosnia and Croatia during the war. And I am most proud of something that happened while I was working there. In one of the camps outside Zagreb I found a young Bosnian refugee girl, Merima, who had lost her family after intense bombing of her village and was now completely alone. It became my mission to find her parents.
Somehow, after a couple of months intense investigation in Croatia, Bosnia and then the UK, I managed to locate them and her sister in Hertfordshire. Her father had been medi-vaced to hospital having suffered severe injuries in the bombing incident close to their house in Banja Luka. I visited them at the hospital north of London, showed them a photo of Merima I had taken in the camp and promised them I would bring her to England when I returned from my next visit to Croatia. I knew I shouldn’t have made such a rash promise and regretted it immediately. I knew it was an almost impossible task. Six weeks later I went back to the refugee camp in Croatia and, to my horror, found it had been bulldozed and the refugees moved on to other camps. As I sat down and sobbed through frustration and despair, Merima suddenly appeared out of the rubble.
She told me through my interpreter that she had hidden when the Croatian police loaded everyone onto the trucks. We hugged ferociously. I handed her a letter from her parents and a postcard of a London bus from her little sister. I then hid Merima under sleeping bags in the back of my truck and transported her across seven borders and into the UK to reunite her with her family. It was a perilous and terrifying journey. Merima didn’t speak a word of English and was very frightened. I knew we could have been turned around at any of the borders had she been discovered. And, in the UK, I could have faced a lengthy prison term for “kidnapping and smuggling” a minor into the country. But we were extremely fortunate. And, after a harrowing trip of several days I managed to reunite Merima with her family. That was probably the proudest moment of my life.
WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVOURITE QUALITY ABOUT YOURSELF?
My least favourite quality about myself is that I am probably too self-critical. At least that is what my children tell me so I guess it must be true.
WHAT SOCIAL ISSUES INTEREST YOU THE MOST?
I am interested in several current issues – Immigration Reform, Marriage Equality and Gun Control. I worked for the Obama reelection campaign because I firmly believe his views on all three of these very important issues are the right views. Congress and the American people should embrace them.
WHO DO YOU ADMIRE?
I admire Michelle Obama because she has somehow managed to combine being a good, caring mother with the work of being First Lady. She also put her career on hold in order to support her husband which, to some, may not be considered a strength but I believe it must have taken a great deal of thought and self-sacrifice to come to that decision. I think she has been a positive force, both inside the White House and in her work as First Lady.
“How the English Establishment Framed Stephen Ward” is a major expose of a government cover-up that has lasted half a century. It is a powerful story of sexual compulsion, political malice and ultimate betrayal. A number-one bestseller when it came out in 1987 under its original title, “An Affair of State”, the book reveals never-before-heard testimony that has been uncovered by the authors in the years since the scandal broke.
Using startling new evidence, including Ward’s own unpublished memoirs and hundreds of interviews with many who, conscience-stricken, have now spoken out for the first time, this important account rips through a half-century cover-up in order to show exactly why the government, the police forces, the Judiciary and the security forces decided to frame Stephen Ward.
Stephen Ward is now the subject of an upcoming Andrew Lloyd-Weber musical and this book offers a wider perspective on its complex, central character as well as a broader insight into one of the greatest scandals of the past 100 years. As the authors’ research reveals, Ward’s “trial of the century” was caused by an unprecedented corruption of justice and political malice which resulted in an innocent man becoming a scapegoat for those who could not bear to lose power.
This is an epic tale of sex, lies, and governmental abuse whose aftermath almost brought down the government and shook the American, British, and Soviet espionage worlds to their core. With its surprising revelations and meticulous research, Ward’s complete story can finally be told.
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Genre – Politics, Espionage, Scandal
Rating – PG-16
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