James Riordan

James, who likes to be called Jim, is a governor of the school and the Link Governor for the English Department and the Library. As he is a friend of the school and a popular local author we would like to tell everyone about his very interesting life. Jim has a weekly column in “The News” on a Monday and expresses his views on all sorts of controversial subjects.

Jim was born in Portsmouth in 1936 and grew up there during the war, living with his grandfather who was a chimney sweep. He attended local schools including the Southern Grammar. After leaving school he had several jobs, including being the double bass player in a band. He did his National Service in the RAF and was sent to the Bodmin School of Russian Studies when it was recognised he had a flair for learning languages. There he did his “A level” Russian and was then sent to Berlin in 1955 to spy on enemy planes. His mission was to listen into the log talk of Russian planes. It was here he met others, who were destined to become celebrities, including Alan Bennett and Dennis Potter. After leaving the Services he went on to further studies and gained a joint honours degree in Social Science and Russian at Birmingham University. He decided to become a teacher and did his training at the London Institute of Education. In 1960 he went to study in Moscow and became one of the first Britons to do so. He stayed there working as a translator and working on his PhD on the History of Russian Sport. Back in England he lectured at various universities including Portsmouth, becoming Professor of Russian Studies at Surrey University.

Jim is a passionate Pompey supporter and his love of football began in 1944 with his first visit to Fratton Park. He was treated to a 13-1 win over Crystal Palace in a friendly match. No wonder it was such a memorable occasion as he is not likely to see that score again. He played football for the Diplomatic Corps when living in Moscow and it was here that his talent was spotted and his great moment arrived. He was chosen to play centre half for Spartak Moscow at the Lenin Stadium in front of sixty thousand people. He is in fact the only English person to play in the Russian Football League.

It was also in Moscow that his desire to write began. He was ill for a short time and while convalescing friends told him stories, mostly Ural folk tales. He decided to write these down and his first book was “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain” in 1970. It was not until 1998 that Jim wrote his first novel for children entitled “Sweet Clarinet”. It won the NASEN Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book Award, losing out to David Almond’s “Skellig”, but beating J k Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”. His book “The Match of Death” won the South Lanarkshire Book Award. Our pupils read “Sweet Clarinet” in year 7 and are now reading Jim’s latest book “Rebel Cargo” in year 8.

Jim has written a variety of books including those on Russian social issues, collections of short stories and folk-tales as well as picture books and many novels. The latter reflect his own life and include a local knowledge of Portsmouth with even his relatives playing their parts and of course his love of football.

At the moment he is working on a book about Black Sport Leaders and researching his book on South Africa. He has an autobiography out soon entitled “Comrade Jim” which I am sure is going to be fascinating and may be serialised in the Daily Telegraph.