Chris McCooey

Chris McCooey is a freelance journalist, photographer and author. He was born in Tunbridge Wells in 1949 and has contributed travel and gardening articles to The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express. He has written a number of local history books and gives talks to local societies in Kent and Sussex. He was educated at The Skinners' School and University College, Oxford. He spent a number of years living and working in Japan. He is the father of actor, Matt McCooey.

At Oxford he was a contemporary of Bill Clinton and played rugby with him. McCooey describes a game in which Clinton flattened an opponent who didn't have the ball. McCooey explained to the referee, "he's from America where you can flatten anybody". He recalls Clinton and fellow Rhodes scholar, Robert Reich, engaged in "titanic arguments" as they walked across the quad.