Sunday 14 August, 4pm
Kiwi Hall at the ANZAC Club, 62 Bell Street, Featherston
Andy Bearpark, probably Featherston’s newest resident author, will launch his modest book of memoirs in the second week of August in the small Wairarapa town he now calls home.
Bearpark came to live in Featherston via a circuitous route that has included (among other equally interesting places) Downing Street, the war torn areas of the Balkans and post-war Iraq.
As a key British figure in post-war Iraq in 2003, Bearpark was recently interviewed by Britain’s The Guardian newspaper in the wake of the release of the Chilcot report.
Bearpark is quoted in the Guardian article as saying, “After the event, I’d say it was wrong to have invaded because we didn’t have the faintest idea what we were doing. Blair was totally out of it … and Bush had made an immense mess of it.
“I worked for some stupendously stupid people in Iraq; I mean, being high-ranking people they were clever in a variety of ways, but stupid in they didn’t know what they were doing. It was totally dysfunctional.” In his book, Bearpark explains that what worried him so much was these people went back to extremely high positions in the US.”
Serendipity Rules – a brief history, is a small book of memoirs of Andy Bearpark’s 40-year career, including his time in Zimbabwe, 10 Downing Street, Montserrat, Bosnia and Kosovo, and Iraq, until his settling into his new life in Featherston where he will open a yoga retreat later this year.
Andy Bearpark will launch his book on Sunday, 14 August at 4pm in Featherston’s Kiwi Hall.
The launch of Bearpark’s book is the first of a regular series of Booktown events leading up to Featherston’s Booktown festival weekend 12-14 May 2017.
ENDS
Contact:
Kate Mead 027 513 1418
Note to editors:
A Booktown is a small rural town or village, close to major cities, in which secondhand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Most Book Towns have developed in villages of historic interest and/or of scenic beauty. Their residents set up events around books - selling them, writing, reading, illustrating, printing, making and publishing them and are joined by booksellers from all over the country and some from further afield.