Roger Hutchinson (born 1949)[ citation needed] is a British author and journalist. Hutchinson was born at Farnworth, near Bolton, in Lancashire,[ citation needed] but lives on Raasay, off the east coast of Skye.
Hutchinson attended Bretton Hall College in Leeds to study English. [1]
In the late 1960s, around the time he studied English at Bretton Hall College, he founded and edited 'Sad Traffic', published from a small office in Barnsley, which ran for five issues before morphing into Yorkshire's alternative newspaper, Styng (Sad Traffic Yorkshire News & Gossip). [1] [2]
He then moved to London and edited OZ, International Times and the magazine Time Out. [1] [2] [3]
In the late 1970s Hutchinson moved to Skye to become a journalist on the West Highland Free Press. [1] Since 1999 he has lived on Raasay. [1]
He has also served as editor of the Stornoway Gazette.[ citation needed]
As of 2017, Hutchinson has written 15 non-fiction books. [2]
Polly, The True Story Behind Whisky Galore (1990) was about the SS Politician, the ship which was wrecked on the Outer Hebrides with a cargo of whisky which inspired the book and film Whisky Galore. [4]
Hutchinson wrote The Real Story of England's 1966 World Cup Triumph ...it is now! in 1995. [5] This book follows the career of Sir Alf Ramsey from his early days in Dagenham through to the 1966 victory.
His book The Soap Man: Lewis, Harris and Lord Leverhulme (2003), was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award. [6]
Calum's Road (2006), about Raasay crofter Calum MacLeod who hand-built a road to his croft, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. [1] [7]
In 2012 Hutchinson published The Silent Weaver, the story of the Uist-raised crofter Angus MacPhee who suffered a schizophrenic breakdown during World War II and subsequently spent 50 years in Craig Dunain Hospital near Inverness where he developed skill in weaving grass taken from the hospital grounds. [8]
As of 2018, Hutchinson's most recent book is The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: The story of Britain through its Census, since 1801 (2017). [9]