Name Roger Hutchinson | Role Author | |
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Books The Silent Weaver: The Extra, Calum's Road, Aleister Crowley: The Beas, The Soap Man, Polly: The True Story Behind W | ||
Roger Hutchinson (born 1949) is a British author and journalist. Hutchinson was born at Farnworth, near Bolton, in Lancashire, but lives on Raasay, off the east coast of Skye.
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Journalism
Hutchinson worked on the London underground magazine Oz, acting as caretaker editor while the magazine's editors were on trial for obscenity in 1971. Hutchinson went on to edit International Times, and then the listings magazine Time Out. In 1977 he joined the left-wing newspaper, the West Highland Free Press, based on the Isle of Skye, where he remains a columnist. He has also served as editor of the Stornoway Gazette.
Writings
Hutchinson has written 14 non-fiction books. Polly, The True Story Behind Whisky Galore (1990) was about the SS Politician, the ship which was wrecked on the Outer Hebrides with a cargo of whisky which inspired the book and film Whisky Galore. He has a sister who lives in Cambridge with two children: Ben and Rosie Nelmes. It is to them that 'The Toon' is dedicated. His book on soap magnate Lord Leverhulme, The Soap Man (2003), was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award. Calum's Road (2006), about Raasay crofter Calum MacLeod who hand-built a road to his croft, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize.
In 2012 Hutchinson published The Silent Weaver, the story of the Uist-raised crofter Angus MacPhee who suffered a schizophrenic breakdown during World War II and subsequently spent 50 years in Craig Dunain Psychiatric Hospital near Inverness where he developed extraordinarily skills in weaving grass taken from the hospital grounds.