HAROLD EVANS

From a wartime beach in Wales to the gleaming skyscrapers of twenty-first-century Manhattan, the extraordinary career of Fleet Street legend Harold Evans has spanned five decades of tumultuous social, political and creative change. Just how did a working class Lancashire boy, who failed the eleven-plus, rise to a position where he could so effectively give voice to the unheard?Born in the bleak years between the wars in the sprawl of Greater Manchester into a thrifty, diligent and loving family, Evans inherited only the privilege of his parents example. Theirs was a work ethic that led Evans through night school classes, national service and a passionate commitment to regional life, and, finally, to his unassailably successful editorship of one of our greatest newspapers, the Sunday Times. Whether unpicking the murderous chaos of Bloody Sunday, pursuing a foreign correspondents murderers or uncovering the atrocity of Thalidomide, this consummate newsman evokes his contagious passion: for the real story and the truth.

Harold Evans has edited everything from the urgent files of battlefield reporters to the complex thought processes of Henry Kissinger, and he has been knighted for his services to journalism. In Do I Make Myself Clear?, his definitive guide to writing well, Evans brings his indispensable insight to the art of clear communication.The right words are oxygen to our ideas, but the digital era, with all of its TTYL, LMK and WTF, has been cutting off that oxygen flow. The compulsion to be precise has vanished from our culture, and in writing of all kinds we see a trend towards more - more speed and more information, but far less clarity. Evans provides practical examples of how editing and rewriting can make for better communication, even in the digital age.Do I Make Myself Clear? is an essential text, and one that will provide every reader an editor at their shoulder.

Essential English is an indispensable guide to the use of words as tools of communication. It is written primarily for journalists, yet its lessons are of immense value to all who face the problem of giving information, whether to the general public or within business, professional or social organisations.FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED BY CRAWFORD GILLANRECOMMENDED BY THE SOCIETY OF EDITORS