HA News

Old Harrovian Hank Adlam (Druries 1936¹) has published a sequel to his autobiography On and Off the Flight Deck called Life is a Yo-Yo. Here is a life with its full share of ups and downs, moving near and sometimes right on the edge of catastrophe. Having, at the age of 86, successfully published his first autobiographical volume, Hank wanted to fill in the gaps of before and after his five years of wartime experiences as a Fighter Pilot in the Fleet Air Arm. His boyhood years in the 1930s were far from dull – sharing his home with his mother’s forty Bull Terriers, driving his father around France at 14 with his own driving licence. Hank’s decision to leave the Royal Navy after the war led him to take a difficult path through life, as he had gained no qualifications other than for flying – which meant a traumatic time for his wife and young family while he worked his way up during the post-war economic depression, from lavatory cleaner, door-to-door salesman, factory shop floor, back to flying as a test pilot and manager of a Flying Club, and eventually becoming a director in industry. The last twelve years of his professional career as the Bursar of Clifton College, a large independent school in Hank’s home city of Bristol, were the happiest and most interesting of all. Hank is a natural storyteller and readers of his earlier book will enjoy the sequel. For new readers he provides a thoughtful and revealing social commentary on periods of the last century that are relatively unrecorded today. For more details and to order click here.

Barnaby Powell (The Head Master's 1957¹) has published a second book with Alex Mackinnon on the likely impact of China's rise on the rest of us, called China Counting: How the West was Lost. China is now the global counting house, trading Western debt and cashing Western obligations – financially, socially and diplomatically. By 'buying' its own democratic electorate with easy credit, the West has ceded power to the Chinese. China's primary goal, however, is internal stability and external security, aiming neither for international dominance nor military confrontation. Mackinnon and Powell show how China is determining its destiny. This book interprets China's policy of gradual global expansion and the alternatives it offers to open capitalism and liberal democracy. It sifts constants from variables to reveal a China positioning itself for recognition as an equal. Click here to buy.

Father and son Hugh and Robert Dunsterville (The Knoll 1928³ and 1959¹) have published a book about the "Freikaiserwagen" car - a legendary and record-breaking hill climb and sprint special, a challenging vehicle to drive, which performed with distinction and success during the late 1930s and into the 1940s. Freik - The Private Life of the Freikaiserwagen, edited by James Fack (The Knoll 1959²), details the conception, building and achievements of this 1100 class hill climb racing car. Click here for more information.

Simon Montefiore (The Knoll 1978³) gave a fascinating insight to his new book Sachenka at the new Daunts Bookshop in the Fulham Road at its launch. He is well qualified to write his first fictional Russian epic as he has previously written factual historical books on both Stalin and Catherine the Great. Click here for the review in The Spectator.

Tom Avery (Elmfield 1989³) has launched his latest book, To the End of the Earth. The book chronicles his record-breaking expedition to the North Pole in 2005 and is being released now to coincide with the centenary of Robert Peary and Matthew Henson’s disputed conquest of the North Pole on April 6th 1909, whose expedition they recreated. 
      "I know I speak for my fellow teammates when I say the expedition was the hardest of our lives, with almost daily dramas of unstable pressure ridges, dogs falling through the ice, sled collisions, some of us getting lost in blizzards, food supplies running out, the constant threat of polar bears, our own falls through the ice and ice floes disintegrating before our very eyes. The fact that we managed to survive, let alone reach the Pole in a new record time is a miracle – particularly as when the expedition’s seed was sown, most of us had never driven a dog team before," says Tom.
      The expedition had a real purpose: to try to uncover the truth about the final expedition of the pioneering and incredibly brave duo of Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, by travelling in their footsteps by the traditional method of dogs and wooden sleds. "I believe we have shed a huge amount of new light on their epic journey," comments Tom. "I hope that our expedition, and To the End of the Earth, goes a long way to painting them in a much more favourable light."
Buy it on Amazon or signed copies are available on Tom's website.

Richard McColl (West Acre 1990³) is one of the authors of the new V!va Guidebook to Colombia - available on amazon.com. Click here for more information.
 
Oliver Chittenden (Rendalls 1989³) has written and produced a beautifully illustrated non-fiction book, titled Inspire, with interviews, quotes and specially commissioned portraits of some of the UK’s most heroic individuals, including Sir Ranulph Fiennes, John Simpson, Sir Matthew Pinsent, Terry Waite, Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, Sir Clive Woodward and Bear Grylls. Inspire offers valuable lessons and insights, a foreword by Sir Richard Branson and, as the title suggests, aims to inspire the reader through the images, stories and words of these remarkable characters.