Alan Jackson

A few years back, an inflight magazine commissioned me to interview a famously ‘challenging’ supermodel (I proved fortunate, as on this occasion she was in her ‘charming’ mode instead). When, as a consequence, the editor asked if I’d write a few words about myself for the contributors’ page, I suffered a bout of shyness and asked if a third party could do so instead. A while later, on flying with that airline, I picked out the latest issue from the seat-back pocket and was stung to find myself described as ‘veteran journalist and interviewer.’ Yet policeman had indeed started to look younger. Supermodels too..

For the last 15 or so years of my freelance career I worked almost exclusively for The Magazine, the colour supplement published each Saturday with The Times (the London-based one). For more than a decade I had a column within it based on a phone conversation with a topical figure (over time Cold Call became I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today Without … and then Words From The Wise). I also brought in many major interviews, among them those with Madonna, Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan. I remain the only British print journalist to have talked with Dylan in the last 25 years, the first time at his record company’s suggestion, the second and third times at his personal request.

In 1999 Enough Candy (Transworld), a book based on my experiences in celebrity journalism, was serialised in The Times. I left the world of newspapers and magazines in 2012 to follow other interests but have found that I miss working with words. I’m currently an MA student on a Creative Writing course with the University of East Anglia.

Alan