Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC
Can we ever really know the truth about our parents? From the popular journalist, podcaster and tweeter about his rescue dog #SophiefromRomania comes a moving memoir in search of the truth behind his isolated childhood and absent father. Rory Cellan-Jones knew he was the child of a brief love affair between two unmarried BBC employees. But until his mother died and he found a previously unknown file labelled 'For Rory' he had no idea of their beginnings or ending, and why his peculiarly isolated childhood had so tested the bond between him and his mother. 'For Rory,' his mother had written on the file 'in the hope that it will help him understand how it really was ...' This is a compelling account of what Rory uncovered in the papers, letters and diaries; a relationship between two colleagues (two romantics) and the restrictive forces of post-war respectability and prejudice that ended it. It is also an evocation of the progressive, centrifugal force at the centre of all their lives - the BBC itself. Both tender and troubling, the drama moves from wartime radio broadcasts, to the glamour of 1950s television studios, to the golden era of BBC drama. His father may have directed The Forsyte Saga and Rory may have watched him from the corridors, but he would never actually meet him until much later in adulthood. Until then Rory's life was bound to the one-bedroom flat he shared with his mother in Ruskin Park ...
Rory Cellan-Jones was the BBC's principal technology correspondent until 2021. He now writes an influential Substack column Always On, and through this and his Twitter account @ruskin147 he spreads awareness of technological developments in the fields of medicine and health care. Together with Jeremy Paxman and others he hosts Movers and Shakers, about Parkinson's, which won the 2024 Broadcasting Press Guild's Podcast of the Year award. His other books are Dot.Bomb: The Rise and Fall of Dot.com Britain, Always On: Hope and Fear in the Smartphone Era and Sophie From Romania: A Year of Love and Hope with a Rescue Dog.
Author: Rory Cellan-Jones
Format: Hardback, 320 pages, 156mm x 234mm
Published: 2023, Duckworth Books, United Kingdom
Genre: Autobiography: General
Can we ever really know the truth about our parents? From the popular journalist, podcaster and tweeter about his rescue dog #SophiefromRomania comes a moving memoir in search of the truth behind his isolated childhood and absent father. Rory Cellan-Jones knew he was the child of a brief love affair between two unmarried BBC employees. But until his mother died and he found a previously unknown file labelled 'For Rory' he had no idea of their beginnings or ending, and why his peculiarly isolated childhood had so tested the bond between him and his mother. 'For Rory,' his mother had written on the file 'in the hope that it will help him understand how it really was ...' This is a compelling account of what Rory uncovered in the papers, letters and diaries; a relationship between two colleagues (two romantics) and the restrictive forces of post-war respectability and prejudice that ended it. It is also an evocation of the progressive, centrifugal force at the centre of all their lives - the BBC itself. Both tender and troubling, the drama moves from wartime radio broadcasts, to the glamour of 1950s television studios, to the golden era of BBC drama. His father may have directed The Forsyte Saga and Rory may have watched him from the corridors, but he would never actually meet him until much later in adulthood. Until then Rory's life was bound to the one-bedroom flat he shared with his mother in Ruskin Park ...
Rory Cellan-Jones was the BBC's principal technology correspondent until 2021. He now writes an influential Substack column Always On, and through this and his Twitter account @ruskin147 he spreads awareness of technological developments in the fields of medicine and health care. Together with Jeremy Paxman and others he hosts Movers and Shakers, about Parkinson's, which won the 2024 Broadcasting Press Guild's Podcast of the Year award. His other books are Dot.Bomb: The Rise and Fall of Dot.com Britain, Always On: Hope and Fear in the Smartphone Era and Sophie From Romania: A Year of Love and Hope with a Rescue Dog.