Nigel Proktor Author

D.J. Taylor's Orwell: The Life won the 2003 Whitbread Prize for Biography. His other works of non-fiction include Thackeray (1999), Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940 (2007), The Prose Factory: Literary Life in England Since 1918 (2016) and Lost Girls: Love, War and Literature 1939-1951 (2019). He has written a dozen novels, including English Settlement (1996), which won a Grinzane Cavour Prize, Trespass (1998) and Derby Day (2011), both of which were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His most recent books are the short story collection Stewkey Blues (2022) and Critic at Large: Essays and Reviews 2010-2022 (2023). His journalism appears in a variety of publication on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the New Criterion, the Critic and Private Eye. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Norwich with his wife, the novelist Rachel Hore. Nigel Proktor first met Howard Devoto in 1979.  In King George's Hall, Blackburn. In his hometown. Howard was performing. Nigel had paid good money to watch.  He was 17. Howard 27. Simple Minds kicked off proceedings that night.  It remains one of the best gigs he has seen . . . and he's seen a fair few over the years. Nigel and Howard promptly went their separate ways thereafter. Only to reconnect under Malcolm Garrett's roof in Shoreditch, London in 1988.  Nigel then designing records sleeves and Howard concocting book ideas.  Later, recording Luxuria's second album, Beast Box, in Dave Formula's Strongroom Studio in the same joint. They parted again only to rejoin in 2008, readying themselves for the 2009 Magazine reunion shows. Howard was again performing, but this time Nigel was taking care of business. Which he does to this day from his base camp at the foothills of The Shard in London Bridge.