Jonathan Fryer

Jonathan Harold Fryer (born Graham Leslie Morton; 5 June 1950 – 16 April 2021) was a British writer, broadcaster, lecturer and Liberal Democrat politician. His biographies of Oscar Wilde and Christopher Isherwood were the best-known of his fifteen books.

Early life Fryer was born in Manchester on 5 June 1950, under the name Graham Leslie Morton. Following the divorce of his natural mother, he was adopted as an infant by a local businessman and his wife, who later spent much of their time in South Africa. He has two natural sisters and one adopted one.

Education

After private primary education at Branwood School, Eccles, Fryer obtained a place at the independent Manchester Grammar School. He spent the summer of 1967 in Tours, at the Institut de Touraine, perfecting his French. He left school before the end of his final year (having acquired 'A' levels in English Literature, French and Geography) and travelled overland to Vietnam, where he reported on the war for the Manchester Evening News and the Geographical Magazine. His overland journey back to England in September 1969 gave him his first introduction to the Middle East, which remained an abiding interest.

Fryer had won an Open Exhibition award to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he started to read Geography, before switching to Oriental Studies (Chinese with Japanese). He returned to the Far East for a year in 1971–1972, studying part-time at the University of Hong Kong and in Tokyo. As a mature student, he has been working on an MSc in Development and Environmental Education.

Career Fryer joined Reuters news agency as a graduate trainee after university, serving for just over a year in London and Brussels. On receiving his first book contract (for The Great Wall of China) he went freelance, but kept Brussels as his base for seven years, travelling widely in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He returned to England in 1981, settling in London, largely to develop his political interests. As a freelance writer on international affairs, he worked mainly for the BBC (Radio 4 and World Service), but also contributed to The Guardian, The Independent, The Economist, The Spectator, The Oldie, The Tablet, Society Today and The Liberal, among others.

For a decade, he regularly appeared on the Today Programme'''s 'Thought for the Day', as a Quaker He lectured frequently on cruise ships, notably around the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, as well as to groups and associations in the UK. Through the British Council and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he gave seminars on democracy-building and the media in locations such as Egypt, Ethiopia and Uruguay. He was a Consultant with Public Affairs International (London).

Politics Fryer joined the Young Liberals after Jo Grimond came to his school during the 1964 general election. Orpington 1987, Leyton He died three weeks later, on 16 April 2021.

BooksThe Great Wall of China (1975)Isherwood (1977)Brussels As Seen by Naif Artists (1979, with Rona Dobson)Food for Thought (1981)George Fox and the Children of the Light (1991) Eye of the Camera (1993)Dylan (1993)The Sitwells (1994, with Sarah Bradford and John Pearson)André & Oscar (1997)Soho in the Fifties and Sixties (1998)Robbie Ross (2000) Published By: The Hudson Review, IncWilde (2005)Fuelling Kuwait's Development (2007) "Kurdistan 2010"Eccles Cakes: An Odd Tale of Survival'' (2016)