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Whizzing All Over The PlaceA FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT'S MEMOIRBy David BarberNZ $34.99 Where To BuyFrom the Publisher - Steele Robertsand all good bookshops Available on
Reviews“David's book is terrific.” Dame Fiona Kidman |
About The Book
After writing about other people for 60 years I decided to write a book about my life and how I reported from more than
50 countries and was a correspondent for some of the world's leading newspapers. The result is Whizzing All Over the
Place - A foreign correspondent's memoir. The title came from a quote by my journalistic hero, famous British
correspondent James Cameron, who once wrote:
“I am deeply sentimental about newspapers. This is probably because in all my life I never knew any other trade, nor
especially wanted to. I was very unhappy sometimes and frequently very lonely, but on the other hand what other job could
I have been doing where I would have been able to whizz all over the place at somebody else’s expense, meet people of
significance, meaningful people, who wouldn’t have had the slightest time for me as an individual but did have some time
for me as a newspaperman?”
My sentiments exactly as I look back on a career that ranged from the Cyprus emergency in the 1950s to the Vietnam War
and included witnessing a French nuclear test in the Pacific atmosphere, talking to Hiroshima A-bomb survivors and
escaping an IRA terrorist attack. I spent a weekend with a Maharajah, a Midsummer Night with a Lapland reindeer
farmer's family and met some remarkable people, including one of London's most crooked policemen,
Australasia's biggest conman and the New Zealander who claimed to be King of Poland.
Sir Anand Satyanand, former
Governor-General of New Zealand, was kind enough to say:
"These crisply written highlights and amusing anecdotes from David’s 50-plus years at the typewriter in England, New Zealand and in many Asian settings are a memorable passing parade of our times, seen through sharp eyes and an inquiring mind. Readers are in for a treat of good writing and firmly drawn opinions to savour. Whizzing All Over the Place is sure to enliven memories and spark many conversations."