Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson was General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union before entering Parliament as Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle in 1997. He served as Home Secretary from June 2009 to May 2010. Before that, he filled a wide variety of cabinet positions in both the Blair and Brown governments, including Health Secretary and Education Secretary. Until 20 January 2011 he was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
His childhood memoir ‘This Boy’ was published by Bantam Press on 9th May 2013. It won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, and the Orwell Prize, Britain's top political writing award. His second volume of memoirs.
‘Please Mr Postman’, was published in September 2014 and won the National Book Club award for Best Biography.
The final book in his memoir trilogy, ‘The Long and winding Road’, was published in September 2016 and won the Parliamentary Book Award for Best Memoir.
Alan retired as an MP before the 2017 general election after 20 years as an MP. A fourth memoir about his love of music (In my Life – A music memoir) was published in 2018 followed by his first novel, ‘The Late Train to Gipsy Hill’ in September 2021.
His new thriller, ‘One of Our Ministers is Missing’, is due for publication on September 1st, 2022.
Having spent eight years on the BBC’s ‘This Week’ with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo, Alan now appears regularly with Steph McGovern on Channel 4’s ‘Steph’s Packed Lunch’ and is the agony uncle for saga Magazine.
He lives in East Yorkshire with his wife Carolyn.
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