Show 20: the novelist, peer and former inmate FF 8282 on his latest novel, A Prisoner of Birth...
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 May 1940) is a British best-selling author and former politician.
Born in London, and brought up in Somerset, he went to Oxford and was subsequently elected to the Greater London Council. Three years later at the age of 29, he became Member of Parliament for Louth. After five years in the Commons and a promising political career ahead of him, he invested heavily in a Canadian company which went into liquidation, sending its' three directors to jail for fraud. Left with debts of £427,727, and on the brink of bankruptcy, he resigned from the House of Commons, and took up what proved to be a successful writing career.
A number of books followed, ranging from epic tales of rivalry over generations to short stories, thriller and plays: Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less; Shall We Tell the President; Kane and Abel; A Quiver Full of Arrows; First Among Equals; and A Twist in the Tale are just some of his prolific output.
After the General Election in 1987, he wrote his first play, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, which ran at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End for over 600 performances. His second play, Exclusive, ran at the Strand Theatre for 100 performances. His most recent drama was The Accused, a courtroom drama with a twist in which the audience acts as the jury, and decides which of two different endings the play should have.
Jeffrey Archer was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party from September 1985 until November 1986. In 1991, he was co-ordinator for the Campaign for Kurdish Relief, and he is also an amateur auctioneer, having raised more than £10 million in the last 10 years. Jeffrey Archer was made a Life Peer in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 1992.
Having run a successful campaign for Mayor of London for two-and-a-half years, from 1997, Jeffrey Archer was selected as the official Conservative Party Candidate for London's Mayor in October 1999 by an overwhelming majority. In November that same year, he withdrew his candidacy, having been charged with perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment, and was released in July 2003, having served two years.
Jeffrey Archer has published three volumes of his Prison Diary; Volume I, Hell, a searing account of his first three weeks in the high security prison, HMP Belmarsh; Volume II, Purgatory, set in HMP Wayland, a C category prison; and the third and final volume, Heaven, about his final transfer to an open prison. His latest novel is A Prisoner of Birth.
A Prisoner of Birth
Danny Cartwright and Spencer Craig were born on different sides of the track. Danny, an East End Cockney, leaves Clement Attlee Comprehensive School at the age of 15 to take up a job at a local garage. He falls in love with Beth, the boss’s daughter, and asks her to marry him. Spencer Craig resides in the West End. A graduate of an English public school and Cambridge University. After leaving university he becomes a criminal barrister and is soon tipped to be the youngest Queen’s Counsel of his generation.
Danny and Beth travel up to the West End to celebrate their engagement. They end the evening in a wine bar where Spencer Craig is also celebrating - his 30th birthday, along with a select group of university chums. Their lives will never be the same again, since, an hour later, one of them is arrested for murder, while the other ends up as the Prosecution’s chief witness in an Old Bailey trial.
Unflinching in its portrayal of the harsh realities of life inside Belmarsh prison, Britain’s highest security jail from which no inmate has ever escaped, A Prisoner of Birth draws vividly on Jeffrey’s first-hand experiences of prison life.