Hunter Davies

Journalist and author

Hunter Davies is a journalist and author of over 40 books, covering a wide range of subjects, from adoption and archaeology to postage stamps and football celebrities. He has written biographies of Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter, Robert Louis Stevenson and the only ever authorised biography of the Beatles. He has also ghosted the memoirs of Wayne Rooney, Gazza and John Prescott, and has written two illustrated histories of football – Boots, Balls and Haircuts (2003) and The Bumper Book of Football (2007) – and also The Glory Game: A Year in the Life of Tottenham Hotspur, for which he got unprecedented access to Spurs' dressing room and training ground.

He has written five novels, the first of which, 1965's Here we Go Round the Mulberry Bush, was turned into a film. He has also written many children’s books, walking books, travel books, and books about the Lake District. As a journalist, he worked for many years on The Sunday Times where he was editor of the Colour Magazine and for ten years wrote a column, Father's Day, in Punch. For several years he presented Bookshelf on BBC Radio 4. He currently writes a column in The Sunday Times on money and in the New Statesman on football.