This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. |
Richard Meredith | |
---|---|
Occupation | Author |
Genre | Adventure travel |
Notable works | One Way or Another, Which Way Next, Driven Together |
Website | |
mercurybooks |
Richard Meredith is a British writer of adventure travel novels best known for Driven Together, [1] his account of the 2007 first car crossing of the new Asian Highway.
Meredith and his co-driver Phil Colley drove from Tokyo (the Highway's farthest point East) to Istanbul (farthest West) in a journey facilitated by the United Nations, whose Commission in Bangkok had finally secured a pan-Asia agreement on the new road network in 2005 after nearly 50 years of negotiations.
Intended as a major benefit for international trade and towards alleviating poverty among Asia's poorer nations, the system is one of the most important developments in global transportation for centuries and resurrects many of the ancient Silk Road trading routes between Asia and Europe.
Meredith, from Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, recruited Colley, a linguist and travel expert from south London, after being lent a V8 Vantage sports car for the trip by Aston Martin who wanted to put the car through a live durability test and to demonstrate its prowess to China's car-buyers. [2]
From Japan, they followed the Highway’s main AH1 and AH5 routes along the system’s ‘central corridor’ across China and many of the former Russian states in central Asia and eastern Europe.
Including considerable customs clearance problems, ferry trips and minor crash repairs, the journey of approx. 10,000 miles from Tokyo to Istanbul and then onto London, took 49 days. It was independently logged [3] and monitored throughout and ended with a reception and press conference hosted by Aston Martin's then-CEO Dr Ulrich Bez at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. China's President Xi Jinping has committed $1 trillion (£750bn) to what he calls the Belt and Road initiative. [4]
A former national newspaper journalist and business magazine publisher, Meredith turned to adventure travel writing after selling his Holcot Press business in 2000.
He published his first novel One Way or Another [5] in 2002 after what he called a 'Gap Year for Grown-ups' in which he described falling into a series of adventures and misadventures while armed with a back-packers' round-the-world ticket from British Airways.
His second book Which Way Next [6] came after he drove a Daewoo family hatchback saloon from Luton to South Korea with a young student companion in a hair-raising journey that included running the gauntlet across war-ravaged Afghanistan and the Khyber Pass.
A member of the Society of Authors and a card-carrying journalist, Meredith has also published an anthology of his experiences as a writer titled Views From the Front Line [7] and a number of local history publications under a pen name including Cromwell's Garrison Town. [8] and a series of articles titled Bond in Bucks. A non-profit imprint to encourage local authors was launched in 2016. [9]
By linking his various activities to fund-raising for charity and major events, he has helped to generate more than £535,000 in recent years for causes including the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in the UK, the SOS Children's Villages organisation in Nepal which he re-visited on the 10th anniversary in 2013, [10] and UNICEF programmes to reduce the number of deaths of young people on the roads of China.
Meredith was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire (now north London) to a family whose name of Reynolds on his maternal side can trace their ancestry to before the English Civil War. His great uncle was Air Marshal Sir Brian Reynolds (1902–1965), the former CinC of Coastal Command, while Lt Thomas E.S. Reynolds, another uncle, won the Military Cross at Ypres in 1918. The painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) was believed to be a distant relative.
He was educated at Great Ballard School near Chichester and Allhallows (now closed) outside Lyme Regis which he left before his 16th birthday. In 1988 he took a short degree course in Business Growth Management at Cranfield School of Management.
As a journalist, he trained with the Herts Advertiser in St Albans and reached the Daily Express in Fleet Street via Thomson newspapers and the Press Association. At Thomson's Evening Echo at Hemel Hempstead his newsroom colleagues included John Clare and John Coldstream (later with the Daily Telegraph ), Tony Holden, the Royal biographer and Stephen Pile, the TV critic and author; while at the Express, his era included the brief editorship of former ITN newscaster Sir Alastair Burnet, Chapman Pincher, the Defence Correspondent, and Jean Rook, Women's Editor.
His time there added to the family's long association with Express and Standard newspapers. His grandfather Harry was a printer with the Evening Standard , his mother was billeted in World War II with the family of Reg Wootton, the Express's Sporting Sam cartoonist, and his cousin Frances worked in the commercial department.
In 1975, in partnership with friends from the Express and elsewhere, he launched the Northants Post weekly newspaper in Northampton (closed Dec. 2016) and later sold his shares to start the Holcot Press Group, a publisher of business magazines and directories which grew into a national organisation from a base in Milton Keynes. It was sold in 2000 to the Zoa Corporation.
A keen sportsman, Meredith is a former playing member of the Saracens and Northampton rugby clubs and once played tennis at Junior Wimbledon. His daughter Clare is a barrister and son Robert was a finalist in BBC2's Design for Life competition with Philippe Starck in 2009.
In recent years he has taught English-related subjects at secondary school level and as a visiting university lecturer. Richard currently lives in Newport Pagnell.
Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is a British manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated with expensive grand touring cars in the 1950s and 1960s, and with the fictional character James Bond following his use of a DB5 model in the 1964 film Goldfinger. Their sports cars are regarded as a British cultural icon. Aston Martin has held a Royal Warrant as purveyor of motorcars to Charles III since 1982, and has over 160 car dealerships in 53 countries, making it a global automobile brand. The company is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. In 2003 it received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. The company has survived seven bankruptcies throughout its history.
Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area.
The Aston Martin Vanquish is a grand tourer introduced by British luxury automobile manufacturer Aston Martin in 2001 as a successor to the Aston Martin Vantage (1993).
Sir David Brown was an English industrialist, managing director of his grandfather's gear and machine tool business David Brown Limited and more recently David Brown Tractors, and once the owner of shipbuilders Vosper Thorneycroft and car manufacturers Aston Martin and Lagonda.
The Aston Martin DB7 is a car which was produced by British luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin from September 1994 to December 2004. It was designed by Ian Callum and Keith Helfet as a grand tourer in coupé and convertible bodystyles. The prototype was complete by November 1992 and debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1993. The six-cylinder DB7 was positioned as an "entry-level" model below the hand-built V8 Virage introduced a few years earlier. This model was the most-produced Aston Martin automobile up to that point in time, with more than 7,000 built before it was replaced by the DB9 in 2004.
The Asian Highway Network (AH), also known as the Great Asian Highway, is a cooperative project among countries in Asia and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to improve their connectivity via highway systems. It is one of the three pillars of the Asian Land Transport Infrastructure Development (ALTID) project, endorsed by the ESCAP commission at its 48th session in 1992, comprising Asian Highway, Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) and facilitation of land transport projects.
The Aston Martin DB5 is a British grand tourer (GT) produced by Aston Martin and designed by Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Originally produced from 1963 to 1965, the DB5 was an evolution of the final series of DB4. The "DB" designation is from the initials of David Brown who built up the company from 1947 onwards.
The March Against Fear was a major 1966 demonstration in the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Activist James Meredith launched the event on June 5, 1966, intending to make a solitary walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi via the Mississippi Delta, starting at Memphis's Peabody Hotel and proceeding to the Mississippi state line, then continuing through, respectively, the Mississippi cities of Hernando, Grenada, Greenwood, Indianola, Belzoni, Yazoo City, and Canton before arriving at Jackson's City Hall. The total distance marched was approximately 270 miles over a period of 21 days. The goal was to counter the continuing racism in the Mississippi Delta after passage of federal civil rights legislation in the previous two years and to encourage African Americans in the state to register to vote. He invited only individual black men to join him and did not want it to be a large media event dominated by major civil rights organizations.
Prodrive is a British motorsport and advanced engineering group based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It designs, constructs and races cars for companies and teams such as Aston Martin, Bahrain Raid Xtreme and Team X44. Its advanced technology division applies this motorsport engineering approach to deliver engineering solutions into automotive OEMs, aerospace, defence, marine and other sectors, which now represents more than half its turnover. Prodrive also has a specialist composite division based in Milton Keynes where it manufactures lightweight carbon composite CFRP and visual carbon components for many supercars and increasingly for the luxury automotive, aerospace and marine sectors.
Buckingham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Greg Smith, a Conservative.
The V8 Zagato model Aston Martin was a grand tourer of the 1980s. Just 52 examples of the coupé and 37 of the convertible were built between 1986 and 1990. The coupé was first unveiled at the 1986 Geneva Motor Show, and orders were quickly taken despite only showing the drawing of the car.
The Aston Martin DB6 is a grand tourer made by British car manufacturer Aston Martin and was produced from September 1965 to January 1971. The "DB" designation is from the initials of David Brown who built up the company from 1947 onwards.
Lagonda is a British luxury car brand established in 1906, which has been owned by Aston Martin since 1947. The trade-name has not had a continuous commercial existence, being dormant several times, most recently from 1995 to 2008, 2010 to 2013, and 2016 onward.
The Aston Martin DB2/4 is a grand tourer produced by Aston Martin from 1953 until 1957. It was available as a 2+2 hatchback saloon, drophead coupé (DHC) and 2-seat fixed-head coupé. A small number of Bertone bodied spiders were commissioned by private buyers.
Francis Kingdon-Ward, born Francis Kingdon Ward OBE, was an English botanist, explorer, plant collector and author. He published most of his books as Frank Kingdon-Ward and this hyphenated form of his name stuck, becoming the surname of his wives and two daughters. It also became a pen name for his sister Winifred Mary Ward by default.
Tickford is an automobile engineering and testing business in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, known for tuning and such products as the 140 mph Tickford Turbo Capri.
"I'm in Love with My Car" is a song by the British rock band Queen, released on their fourth album A Night at the Opera in 1975. It is the album's only song written entirely by drummer Roger Taylor.
Reynold's News was a Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom, founded as Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper by George W. M. Reynolds in 1850, who became its first editor. By 1870, the paper was selling more than 350,000 weekly copies. George died in 1879, and was succeeded as editor by his brother, Edward Reynolds.
Thayil Jacob Sony George is an Indian writer and biographer who received a Padma Bhushan award in 2011 in the field of literature and education. The fourth of eight siblings, TJS was born in Kerala, India to Thayil Thomas Jacob, a magistrate, and Chachiamma Jacob, a homemaker. Although his roots are in Thumpamon, Kerala, he lives in Bangalore and Coimbatore with his wife Ammu. He has a daughter, Sheba Thayil and a son, Jeet Thayil. American TV journalist Raj Mathai is his nephew.