Confessions

Brought face to face with the author of his obituary and his own inevitable mortality, Edward Stourton is prompted to reflect on the life he has led and the events that have shaped him.

Ed was born into a life of privilege: the son of expat parents in colonial Nigeria, he was sent back to Britain to be educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth, at the time when, it was latter revealed, the school and monastery were the setting for serial abuse cases. He then went up to Cambridge, where his life as an undergraduate gave him access to a network of future ministers, judges and newspaper editors. As a young journalist he reported first from party conferences and picket lines and then from war zones, witnessing the events making international headlines, from Haiti to Hong Kong, before returning home to join the infighting on BBC Radio 4's Today.

During this time, the Empire has given way to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, men-only clubs have been replaced by Me Too, and instead of a choice selection of voices on a handful of radio and television channels, we have millions of voices on YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok.

The world has changed, and so has Ed. In Confessions, he describes this remarkable journey with candour, humour and the insight that only forty years' experience of writing and reporting can provide.