The Writing Life: The Past Never Leaves You, Or Does It?

I have often said that my worst professional mistake was leaving the clangorous world of daily newspapers for magazines and book writing. Of course, that was back in 1985, a very different time for the media, and for the world.

The digital era had not yet dawned, and we "hacks" - as print journalists, particularly foreign correspondents, were known - scrambled around in search of stories. We then scrambled around some more to find a post office with a telex machine to file our dispatches to our home offices. No email in those days, no satellite phones either. Your dispatches depended on the caprice of the telex operation. He was more influenced by the graft you gave than the novelty, timeliness and piquancy of your stories.

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