Book progress

Interview with Nobel Prize winner, John Gurdon

~ AshleyCoates ~ 1 Comment

Aged 15, John Gurdon was ranked last for biology out of the 250 boys in his year at Eton. In a school report from 1949, his teacher suggested that it would be pointless for John to even attempt to go to university:

“I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous…it would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who have to teach him.”

The report is now framed in his office at the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge.

I’ll be talking to John Gurton in the New Year about the work that resulted in winning the Nobel Prize for Science in October this year. John’s pioneering research led to the discovery that mature cells can be converted into stem cells. His work in cloning began at the University of Oxford, where he successfully cloned a frog in 1958.

John Gurdon's School Report

Mamma Mia! writer interview

~ AshleyCoates ~ Leave a comment

Before she penned one of the most successful musicals of all time, Catherine Johnson was struggling to make ends meet as a single mother living in a damp flat in Bristol. Mamma Mia! the play went on to gross over $2 billion at the box office and the 2008 film is still the fastest selling DVD of all time. My interview with Catherine is now online here.

“I did absolutely want to write about the single mother who wasn’t a wretched kind of – you know – at that time there was a lot of press about single mothers being a drain on the state etc etc. so I wanted to write about a working single mother who had got her life together and the relationship she had with her daughter who she absolutely adored but fought with.”