Barry Turner (journalist)
Barry Turner is a British author, editor, journalist.
Barry Turner started his career as a teacher before turning to journalism with The Observer and making many appearances on radio and television. His first book, a study of British politics in the early twentieth century, was published in 1970. While writing and presenting documentary series for Thames, Yorkshire and Granada Television, he co-authored Adventures in Education and wrote Equality for Some, a history of girls' education. In 1972, he wrote A Place in the Country, a bestseller about life in the great country houses which inspired a television series.
In the mid 1970s, Barry joined Macmillan to develop a general non-fiction list before turning to marketing as a director of the academic press responsible for world sales. Returning to full-time writing in the early 1980s, he produced a wide range of work from theatrical biographies to a political and economic study of the five Nordic countries, The Other European Community. The story of ten thousand refugee children who escaped to Britain from Nazi Germany, ... And the Policeman Smiled, was published in 1990. For many years he wrote on travel for The Times and reviewed and serialized books for the paper.
As founding editor of The Writer’s Handbook he has taken this annual reference title through to its twenty-fifth edition. Barry was appointed editor of The Statesman's Yearbook in 1997.
Barry's recent work includes When Daddy Came Home, how family life changed forever in 1945; One Small Suitcase, an adaptation of ... And the Policeman Smiled for younger readers and Countdown to Victory, the story of the final European campaigns of World War II. His book, on the 1956 Suez Crisis, was published in 2006 while his latest work, Outpost of Occupation, about the war experiences of the Channel Islands, was published in early 2010. His book on the 1951 Festival of Britain was published in the spring of 2011. He is a founder member and former chairman of the National Academy of Writing and a visiting professor at Birmingham City University.
