Gibraltar National Museum hosts special lecture by world renowned author, Bill Bryson

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The Gibraltar National Museum is pleased to announce that it will be hosting a talk entitled “Notes from All Over” by world renowned author Bill Bryson. The talk will be held at the John Mackintosh Hall on Tuesday 27^th August at 7pm. Free tickets are available via the Museum’s Eventbrite page.

Bill Bryson was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa, but has spent most of his adult life in England. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1987, he worked as a journalist, principally on The Times, where he was Chief Sub-Editor of Business News. His book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the 2004 Aventis Prize of the Royal Society and the Descartes Prize, the European Union’s highest literary award, and has been translated into 46 languages. His other books include Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Down Under, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and The Road to Little Dribbling.

Bryson was Chancellor of Durham University, England’s third oldest university (after Oxford and Cambridge), from 2005-11, and for four years was on the Board of Directors of English Heritage, the British Government body responsible for England’s historic environment. From 2006 to 2012 he was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, one of Britain’s oldest conservation organizations.

In 2006 he was awarded an honorary OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the British Government, and in 2014 was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He has been a patron of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, the National Churches Trust, and of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children's Love Hearts Appeal, which aims to raise funds for new facilities for transplant patients and to increase awareness of the need for organ donations.

He lives in Hampshire with his English wife, Cynthia. He has four grown children and 12 grandchildren. His principal interests outside work and family are walking in the English countryside and gardening.

The Minister for Heritage, the Hon John Cortes, said: “It’s really exciting to be able to welcome Bill Bryson back to Gibraltar for what will be a fascinating and no doubt enjoyably humorous talk. Some may recall that Bill featured Gibraltar in a National Geographic article some years ago. It’s a privilege to have him back on the Rock. Congratulations to the Gibraltar National Museum for arranging this.”