Roger Hutchinson (born 1949) is a British author and journalist. Hutchinson was born at

Farnworth Farnworth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, southeast of Bolton, 4.3 miles south-west of Bury (7 km), and northwest of Manchester. Historically in Lancashire, Farnworth lies on the River ...

, near

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th centu ...

, in Lancashire, but lives on Raasay, off the east coast of Skye.

Education

Hutchinson attended

Bretton Hall College Bretton Hall College of Education was a higher education college in West Bretton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. It opened as a teacher training college in 1949 with awards from the University of Leeds. The college merged with the Uni ...

in Leeds to study English.

Career

In the late 1960s, around the time he studied English at

, he founded and edited 'Sad Traffic', published from a small office in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

, which ran for five issues before morphing into Yorkshire's alternative newspaper, Styng (Sad Traffic Yorkshire News & Gossip). He then moved to London and edited '' OZ'', '' International Times'' and the magazine '' Time Out''. In the late 1970s Hutchinson moved to Skye to become a journalist on the ''

West Highland Free Press The ''West Highland Free Press'' was founded in the Scottish Highlands in 1972 as a left-wing weekly newspaper, but with the principal objective of providing its immediate circulation area with the service which a local paper is expected to pr ...

''. Since 1999 he has lived on Raasay. He has also served as editor of the '' Stornoway Gazette''.

Books

As of 2017, Hutchinson has written 15 non-fiction books. ''Polly, The True Story Behind Whisky Galore'' (1990) was about the SS ''Politician'', the ship which was wrecked on the Outer Hebrides with a cargo of whisky which inspired the book and film '' Whisky Galore''. Hutchinson wrote ''The Real Story of England's 1966 World Cup Triumph ...it is now!'' in 1995. This book follows the career of

Sir Alf Ramsey Sir Alfred Ernest Ramsey (22 January 1920 – 28 April 1999) was an English football player and manager. As a player, he represented the England national team and captained the side, but he is best known for his time as England manager fr ...

from his early days in Dagenham through to the 1966 victory. His book ''The Soap Man:

Lewis Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * " Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohe ...

Harris Harris may refer to: Places Canada * Harris, Ontario * Northland Pyrite Mine (also known as Harris Mine) * Harris, Saskatchewan * Rural Municipality of Harris No. 316, Saskatchewan Scotland * Harris, Outer Hebrides (sometimes called the Isl ...

and

Lord Leverhulme William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme , (, ; 19 September 1851 – 7 May 1925) was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician. Having been educated at a small private school until the age of nine, then at church schools ...

'' (2003), was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award. ''Calum's Road'' (2006), about Raasay crofter Calum MacLeod who hand-built a road to his croft, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. In 2012 Hutchinson published ''The Silent Weaver'', the story of the

Uist "Uist" is a group of six islands and are part of the Outer Hebridean Archipelago, part of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. North Uist and South Uist ( or ; gd, Uibhist ) are two of the islands and are linked by causeways running via the isles o ...

-raised crofter Angus MacPhee who suffered a schizophrenic breakdown during World War II and subsequently spent 50 years in Craig Dunain Hospital near

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

where he developed skill in weaving grass taken from the hospital grounds. As of 2018, Hutchinson's most recent book is ''The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: The story of Britain through its Census, since 1801'' (2017).

References

External links

Profile
at Scottish Book Trust 1949 births Living people English writers English male journalists People from the Isle of Skye Alumni of Bretton Hall College {{UK-writer-stub