CHRISTOPHER MATTHEW
WRITER & BROADCASTER
A B O U T
Christopher Charles Forrest Matthew (born 8th May 1939) is a British writer and broadcaster. He is best known as the author of Now We Are Sixty, inspired by the poems of A. A. Milne in the book Now We Are Six, and as the chronicler of the life and times of the hapless hero, Simon Crisp, in Diary of a Somebody.
EARLY LIFE
Christopher was born in Lewisham, South London. As a child he lived in Merle Common, Surrey, and then in nearby Oxted. He spent most of his teenage years in Burnham Market in Norfolk. He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, and read English at St. Peter's College, Oxford.
CAREER
After a year spent teaching in a girls' finishing school in Switzerland, Christopher worked as a copywriter in various London advertising agencies including
J. Walter Thompson, before becoming a full time writer in 1970.
His books include Diary of a Somebody, Loosely Engaged, The Long-Haired Boy (adapted for TV as A Perfect Hero, starring Nigel Havers), an annotated edition with Benny Green of Three Men in a Boat, The Junket Man, How to Survive Middle Age, Family Matters, The Amber Room, A Nightingale Sang in Fernhurst Road, Now We Are Sixty, Knocking On, Now We Are Sixty (and a Bit), Summoned by Balls , When We Were Fifty ,The Man Who Dropped the Le Creuset on His Toe, Dog Treats, A Bus Pass Named Desire, The Old Man and the Knee, and A Triple-Decker Treat: Collected Poems for Old Dogs and Young Hearts.
As a journalist, he has been a travel writer for The Sunday Times, a restaurant critic for Vogue, a property correspondent for Punch, and a television and book reviewer for the Daily Mail.
He has written short stories for Radio 4 and his radio plays include A Portrait of Richard Hillary, Madonna's Plumber, and A Nightingale Sang in Fernhurst Road.
He contributed scripts to the ITV series The Good Guys, with Nigel Havers and Keith Barron, and a stage play, Summoned by Betjeman, starring Robert Daws, was performed at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, the Royal Theatre, Northampton, and Clwyd Theatr Cymru.
In 1983 Christopher, Tim Rice and Benny Green recreated Jerome K. Jerome's classic Thames journey in Three More Men in a Boat for BBC Television.
He has appeared many times over the years on BBC Radio 4 - among other things as chairman of The Travelling Show, presenter of Something to Declare, Points of Departure and Plain Tales from the Rhododendrons, and a panellist on Quote Unquote. For several years he worked with Alan Coren on Freedom Pass (nominated for a Sony Award) and with Des Lynam on Touchline Tales. In 2012 he recorded a special Freedom Pass episode with Terry Waite; in October 2013 he and Martin Jarvis revisited their childhood homes in Grey Shorts and Sandals; in March 2014 he presented a three-hour profile on Alan Coren: The Sage of Cricklewood for BBC Radio 4 Extra, and in 2017 he and Martin completed the stories of their respectives lives and careers in Jarvis and Matthew.
PERSONAL LIFE
Christopher has two sons, Nicholas and William, and a daughter, Charlotte. He lives in London and Suffolk with his wife, Wendy, and their dog, Rufus.