Edwina Currie is a former politician now a novelist and TV presenter.
Edwina Currie was born in Liverpool in 1946. She graduated from Oxford and London Universities and taught economics and economic history, and was a tutor for the Open University. A Birmingham City Councillor (1975-86) and Chairman of the Central Birmingham Health Authority, she served as MP for South Derbyshire from 1983 to 1997.
Edwina is a well-known broadcaster and author. She writes regularly for national press and magazines. She has seven books. There are non-fiction: “Life Lines”, published in 1989, on her time as Health Minister; “What Women Want” (1990), essays on women’s role; “Three Line Quips” (1992), wit from the House of Commons. Her first novel, “A Parliamentary Affair” (1994) went to Number 1 in the best-seller lists, has sold over 250,000 copies in English and been translated into German, Italian, Polish and Russian. Her second, “A Woman’s Place” (1996) and third, “She’s Leaving Home” (1997), set in her native Liverpool, were also best-sellers. The fourth, “The Ambassador”, a tongue-in-cheek look at the world in the near future, was published in hardback in February 1999. Her books are borrowed over 100,000 times a year from public libraries. The next novel, “Chasing Men”, will appear in February 2000.
Currently Edwina presents her own programme, “Late Night Currie” for BBC Radio Five Live from 10.00pm to 1.00am on Saturday and Sunday nights. She is also frequently heard on Radio 4 and Radio 2. On television she has presented “Sunday Supplement” for Central TV in 1993, “Espresso” for Channel 5 in summer 1997, “Menu from Heaven”, for ITV, shown April-May 1998. Her BBC daytime TV series, “What Now?” appeared in July and August 1998.
From 1985-86 Edwina was PPS (aide) to Sir Keith Joseph at the Department of Education and Science; from 1986-88 she was a government minister at the DHSS (later the Department of Health) under Margaret Thatcher. She resigned after warning about food safety in eggs. John Major invited her to rejoin the government in 1992 but she declined. She lost her seat in the 1997 General Election. Thus were completed 22 years of public service.
A pro-European, in June 1994 she was a candidate for the European Parliament for Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. Conservatives won only 18 out of 87 seats and she was not returned. From 1995 till 1997 Edwina was Chairman of the Conservative Group for Europe, and 1995-January 1999 was Vice-chairman of the all-party European Movement.
She has been the subject of several full-length documentary profiles including “The Other Half” (1984, John Pitman), Channel 4 “Dispatches” (1989, Michael Cockerell), “Vanessa’s Day with…” (1997, Vanessa Feltz). She frequently appears on other radio and TV.
In December 1988 Mrs Currie was runner-up to Mrs Thatcher in BBC Radio 4’s “Woman of the Year” poll; the following year she came 6th in the same poll (between Mother Theresa and Raisa Gorbachev). In 1990 she was voted “Speaker of the Year” by the Association of Speakers’ Clubs and in 1994 was chosen “Campaigner of the Year” in The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards for her work on gay equality.
Edwina Currie lives in London; her spare-time interests include the theatre, reading other people’s books and keeping fit.
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