Rosemary Bailey (author)

Rosemary Bailey (1953 – 20 March 2019) was a British writer.[1][2] She writes travel memoirs about France. In 2008 Bailey won the British Guild of Travel Writers' award for best narrative travel book, Love and War in the Pyrenees.[3]

Rosemary Bailey
Born1953 (1953)
Halifax, Yorkshire, England
Died20 March 2019 (aged 65–66)
London, England
Notable workBooks about France. Life in a Postcard, The Man who Married a Mountain and Love and War in the Pyrenees
SpouseBarry Miles
Websitewww.rosemarybailey.com

Early life and education

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Bailey was born in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire[4] in 1953, daughter of the Baptist minister Rev Walter Bailey. In 1959 the family moved to Birkenhead, near Liverpool, and then to Newcastle-under-Lyme where she attended Clayton Hall Grammar School. She then attended the University of Bristol, taking a degree in English and Philosophy. Rosemary Bailey is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, the Society of Authors and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund.[5]

Career

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After a year on a farm in Somerset Bailey moved to London as a researcher with The Daily Telegraph Information Service, then spent three years training as journalist with Haymarket Publications on Engineering Today. She followed that by several years as a freelance journalist in London and New York City, writing about travel, women's issues, food, fashion and literary matters for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent, Elle, Vogue and others. She has edited and written travel guides to New York, Italy, but mainly France, for Time Out, Insight Guides, Dorling Kindersley and National Geographic Traveler.[citation needed]

In 1997 Bailey published Scarlet Ribbons: A Priest with Aids, the story of her brother, Rev Simon Bailey, an Anglican priest, who remained supported in his Yorkshire parish of Dinnington until he died in 1995.[6][7][8] A new edition of Scarlet Ribbons was published in 2017 to considerable acclaim, including the BBC Radio 4 broadcast A priest with AIDS.[9] on 23 July 2017. Between 1997 and 2005 Bailey was based mainly in Southern France,[10] as described in her second book, Life in a Postcard.[11][12]

Subsequent books explored the Pyrenees further, The Man who Married a Mountain (2005) about a 19th-century mountaineer, Sir Henry Russell-Killough, and the award-winning[13] Love and War in the Pyrenees[11][14] about World War II in the region, Camp de Rivesaltes, described by The Jewish Chronicle as "a quiet triumph of historical reconstruction."[15]

Later career

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Bailey was a writing tutor for the Arvon Foundation,[16] a contributor to Jewish Book Week[17] and between 2010-2012 and 2014-2015 a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Queen Mary University of London.[5]

Personal life and death

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Bailey was married to author Barry Miles, and they had one son.[18] She died in London on 20 March 2019. She had been suffering from leukaemia for several years prior to her death.[19][20]

Publications

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Books

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  • Scarlet Ribbons: A Priest with Aids. Serpent's Tail. 1997. ISBN 1-85242-521-0.[21][22][23]
  • Life in a Postcard: Escape to the French Pyrenees. Transworld Publishers. 2002. ISBN 0553813412.[24]
  • The Man Who Married a Mountain. Transworld Publishers. 2005. ISBN 0-553-81523-7.[25][26]
  • Love and War in the Pyrenees. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2008. ISBN 978-0753825914.[27]
  • The Arvon Book of Literary Non-fiction (contributor). Bloomsbury Publishing. 2012. ISBN 978-1408131237.
  • Scarlet Ribbons: A Priest with Aids. Jorvik Press. 2017. ISBN 978-0-9863770-3-7.[28][29][30][31]

Travel guides

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Awards

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  • British Guild of Travel Writers' award for best narrative travel book 2008. (Love and War in the Pyrenees)
  • British Guild of Travel Writers award for best European travel article 2006.
  • ABTOF (Association of Tour Operators to France) award for best travel article 2008.
  • Awarded grant from Francis Head Bequest 2006

References

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  1. ^ Living France, Aug 2009 Paper Tales. Profile of Rosemary Bailey by Deborah Curtis
  2. ^ Miles. "Rosemary Bailey | Miles". Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  3. ^ "Rosemary Bailey's LOVE AND WAR IN THE PYRENEES - La Paloma". lapaloma.info. April 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  4. ^ Bailey
  5. ^ a b Rosemary Bailey, Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Queen Mary University of London 2010-12 and 2014/15
  6. ^ "HOW A YORKSHIRE MINING COMMUNITY SUPPORTED THEIR GAY REVEREND WITH AIDS IN THE 1990S", The Independent, 26 July 2017
  7. ^ "Sister's moving account of her brother's battle with Aids republished", Halifax Courier, 4 August 2017
  8. ^ The Independent, 15 January 1995 A Parish Learns.., by Rosemary Bailey
  9. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Sunday, A priest with AIDS; the churches and mosques supporting Grenfell; Canterbury's medieval glass".
  10. ^ Article about Rosemary Bailey in Southern France, Histoire de Mosset
  11. ^ a b Karen O'Reilly (21 May 2012), "Life in a Postcard - Escape to the french Pyrénées", Get Real France (blog)
  12. ^ Rosemary Bailey: Random House, Publisher profile
  13. ^ British Guild of Travel Writers' award for best narrative travel book 2008
  14. ^ Love and War in the Pyrenees by Rosemary Bailey, Review by P-O Life
  15. ^ Abrams, Rebecca (12 September 2008), "Love and War In The Pyrenees by Rosemary Bailey", The Jewish Chronicle
  16. ^ The Arvon Book of Literary Non-fiction, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012. . Contributor
  17. ^ Rosemary Bailey, Jewish Book Week Contributor
  18. ^ Campbell, James (20 March 2010). "Barry Miles: 'I think of the 60s as a supermarket of ideas. We were looking for new ways to live'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  19. ^ "Rosemary Bailey 1953–2019". RLF. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  20. ^ "Rosemary Bailey". Barry Miles. 9 April 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  21. ^ AIDS BOOK REVIEW JOURNAL
  22. ^ "Review of Scarlet Ribbons by Rosemary Bailey", Kirkus Reviews, 10 May 2010
  23. ^ The Observer, 9 November 1997 Review of Scarlet Ribbons by Emily Ormond
  24. ^ Kirkus Reviews, 15 February 2003 Review of Life in a Postcard
  25. ^ "Rosemary Bailey offers a cheat's guide to the Pyrenees". The Guardian. 6 July 2008. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  26. ^ The Times, 2005 Review of The Man who Married a Mountain by Celia Brayfield
  27. ^ The Times, 6 September 2008 Review of Love and War in the Pyrenees by Michèle Roberts
  28. ^ "The incredible story of Rev Simon Bailey, a gay priest with Aids who won the support of a mining community in the early '90s". The Independent. 26 July 2017. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  29. ^ "My brother was the 'priest with Aids' - here's how he turned a whole community around". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
  30. ^ "Life of gay Sheffield priest who died from AIDS chronicled as moving book is re-published". Sheffield Star. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  31. ^ "Incredible story of priest who died of AIDs and the tough pit village who provided him comfort". Daily Mirror. 22 July 2017. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
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