The former health secretary and acclaimed memoirist on his rock’n’roll past, how the Litvinenko poisoning inspired his new thriller, and how he’d have handled Covid
Alan Johnson grew up in working-class Notting Hill, London, in the 1950s, raised by his teenage sister after their mother’s death. He left school at 15 and worked as a postman, a union leader and a Labour MP and cabinet minister under Tony Blair. The spry author of four award-winning memoirs, retirement is not his style. He left politics in 2017 and now, at 71, is publishing his first work of fiction – a thriller – The Late Train to Gipsy Hill.
I gather you wanted to be a writer before you ever thought of becoming a politician?
When the Beatles’ Paperback Writer came out in 1966, I wanted to be a paperback writer. I’ve dedicated The Late Train to Gipsy Hill to my amazing English teacher – Peter Carlin. He had natural authority, a mellifluous voice and never went anywhere near the cane. I not only admired him, he was the first teacher I liked. He treated us as adults. I submitted short detective stories to him: Inspector Andrew and Mr Midnight. Mr Carlin said: “Alan, have you ever thought of sending these off?” When I got the inevitable rejections, he said: “Don’t give up. All great writers could paper their walls with rejection slips.” I sent him a facsimile of the book’s dedication for his 90th birthday.
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