I am a journalist, specialising in foreign affairs. I present radio and TV documentaries for the BBC and other outlets. The role culture plays in people’s lives fascinates me as well as interplay between art and politics. Penal reform is a long standing obsession and I have visited prison in many countries looking at innovative rehabilitation schemes.
I became a Trustee in 2013. It is exciting to see how many of the artists we have supported over the years are flourishing and achieving extraordinary things. Since I am passionate about making the arts accessible to everyone, I am especially proud of our Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries programme which supports paid jobs in cultural organisations across the UK, for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
My involvement with Jerwood has taken me to all kinds of places from tunnels under cliffs in Sussex to hear volunteer choirs honouring conscientious objectors in WW1 to an artist’s studio in Hackney to a dance by 1500 pigeons over a sewage works to a thought provoking and hauntingly beautiful poetry recital in a central London church.
I have recently become more interested in exploring classical music partly because it was once of the best ways of communicating with my father Eric in the last years of his life.
