Katharine Quarmby
Award-winning writer, editor and journalist.
Author: Katharine Quarmby
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A round-up of reviews here. Ian Birrell, who also reviewed my last book, Scapegoat: why we are failing disabled people, posted a very thoughtful review in the Observer. He concluded that it was “An important book by an impressive journalist” although he did feel there was a bit too much reporting from Dale Farm which does…
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No Place to Call Home will be published next Thursday – after pretty much 18 months work on it, and not much else, and some years before that, of course, spending time with the Romani Gypsy and Traveller communities (and, in later times, getting to know some of the newly arrived Roma as well). The…
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Well, finally, the book is nearing publication, and as a taster, here’s the book trailer about it- As I say on the Unbeaten Path page of this website, thanks go to all the people who helped me make the trailer: Particular thanks go to Sam Lee, who was kind enough to sing one of the…
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Yesterday evening I think I surpassed my personal best – four different soups within twenty-four hours. I have very good teeth, so this is a pity (in my forties and no fillings, Iranian genetics apparently). I’ll be in my care home, begging for soup, and being given other nasty crunchy things like Kiev and fish…
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Over the last few months, I’ve worked with the Centre for the Modern Family, a relatively new but influential think-tank, and its expert panel, authoring a report on the state of care in the UK. It was an interesting but very disturbing report to write. It was very clear that those supporting disabled people, who…
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In 1975 my dad’s brother, Andrew Quarmby, then an aid worker in Nepal, invited us to join him on a trip to the Himalayas. My mum and dad trained us hard, despite the lamentable lack of hills in Norfolk; the one small slope near our home became our ‘Everest’ and we walked up and down…
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In 2005 I started to investigate the RSPCA’s prosecution record – below for BBC Newsnight. I am posting here the (fully legalled) script I wrote at the time as a (freelance) reporter, just before the Animal Welfare Act became law. I wondered whether it was worth reviving this, seven years after transmission, but as I…
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It must be well over a year since I first sent a draft of my story for primary school children, Rosie gets the Plot, to my agent, for some feedback about this story about sibling rivalry – and how the parents use gardening to get their older child, Rosie, to accept the new arrival, baby…
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Lord Justice Leveson took evidence from 184 oral witnesses on just one module alone – the relationship between the press and the public. He took further oral evidence from many more people and organisations for three separate modules – the press and the police, the press and politicians and the future of the press. But…
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I was contacted by Occupied Times (the newspaper of the Occupy Movement) for a piece about my book, Scapegoat: why we are failing disabled people, and the campaigning I have done with disability organisations to raise our concerns about the way in which both the Government and the media discuss disability benefit cuts. All well…
Katharine Quarmby 