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Revel Barker is the Publisher of Palatino Books.
He started writing for newspapers, and for money, while still at school and worked as a reporter for the Pudsey & Stanningley News and the Batley News & Reporter before joining the Yorkshire Evening Post at 17 - becoming the youngest reporter the newspaper had ever employed.
He joined the Daily Mirror before his 21st birthday (again, the youngest-ever) and after ten years moved to the Sunday Mirror where he became defence correspondent and foreign editor.
In 1984 a new publisher, Robert Maxwell, appointed him, first, as his 'editorial adviser' and later as group managing editor and director of Mirror Colour Print.
He resigned on Maxwell's last day in the office, wrote and sold a movie script, and became a director and later a consultant for two prestigious UK universities. He also wrote a regular column on education for the Independent and produced a documentary for Discovery channel: Whittle: The Man and the Machine based on his filmed interview with the inventor of the jet engine, Sir Frank Whittle.
Described in the Guardian as 'the tireless archivist of Fleet Street memories', he created and ran a website with more than 50,000 readers worldwide, that The Times described as 'a brilliant compendium of reminiscences of the great days of Fleet Street'.
As a hobby he started publishing books about journalists and journalism and republishing out-of-print works he had enjoyed reading and thought deserved keeping 'alive' for future generations.
He now lives, and writes histories and history-based novels, on an island in the Mediterranean.
In 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
See below...
Latest
Published 2021
Fit For A King
A Short History of Yorkshire's Wool
Industry and Trade
There is evidence of weaving in Yorkshire dating back to the Bronze Age but there was weaving everywhere where there were sheep, and there were sheep everywhere in England.
There was nothing special about Yorkshire wool, but when a missionary preacher came back from Australia to report on the colony to King George III, he brought a barrel full of wool from his own Merino flock and had it woven and tailored near his home, half-way between Bradford and Leeds.
The King (not so mad as reported) admired both the wool and the weave and was promised a coat in the same texture. It was the start of the Australian wool industry and the supremacy of the West Riding of Yorkshire as the place to weave it and then to tailor it and to market it.
Bradford would become the world's centre for wool-buying and the weaving industry and Leeds, ten miles away, for the marketing and tailoring.
Everything in Yorkshire's wool business, from the size of the mills to their works canteens would become the biggest and best in the world.
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The Blood Secret
A cardinals' cabal to depose a newly elected but unpopular Pope leads to the death of a British arms dealer on the Maltese island of Gozo.
To Chief-inspector 'Bob' Shilling, sent from Scotland Yard to assist the inquiry, it seems like a murder without a motive.
But then he discovers that the murder is directly linked to the Crucifixion of Jesus and an ancient fragment of papyrus that contains information shamefully hidden by the Vatican for centuries.
That is The Blood Secret.
As the story unfolds it will challenge everything that readers know (or think they know) about the Church, the Crusaders, the Knights of Malta, Freemasonry - but most of all about the New Testament.
The Hitler Scoop
Alternative History. Tackling the myths, mystery and confusion concerning reports of the death of Hitler and a newspaper reporter's quest to uncover the truth.
The Northern Echo described it as "the most thought-provoking book of the year" and the Daily Mail said it was "full of Arthur Daley-type characters".
The Yorkshire Post made it Book of the Month.
This edition is a historically revised version of the best-selling original.
Charles Ritter is on the track of the scoop of the year.
Or the decade.
Or perhaps even the century.
The year is 1967.
The Mayor of Montebello
There was no crime on the Mediterranean island of Montebello. Occasionally, it was necessary for somebody to be murdered, but that was only because the island was part of Sicily, and murder was a Sicilian tradition.
But Horatio Greene, who had spent all his childhood holidays on the sunshine isle and retired - early - to live there, knew that locals left their keys in the lock on the outside of the door, and that there'd never been a stolen car...
A veteran Fleet Street reporter, who spent his childhood holidays on the island, and who has retired there early, Horatio imports his experience as editor of the local paper.
He has then criticises the way the island is run so ferociously that they decided to put him in charge, as Mayor.
But not everything in Montebello is as it appears.
Underneath the tranquil surface run ancient feuds and passions that are about to explode.
And the new Mayor of Montebello soon discovers he has taken on far more than he bargained for -- and there is a lot more to the island than he ever knew.
"The Mayor of Montebello is sun-kissed Mediterranean mystery story. It is a captivating tale of island life that will entrance anyone who had ever spent a leisurely afternoon sipping the local wine and watching the waves wash against the beach.
It is perfect for fans of Victoria Hislop, Joanne Harris and Louis de Bernieres.' - GoodReads
