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MP is brought to book by author

18/ 4/2008

WILMSLOW author Shiv Sharma has just published his third novel and made sure Tatton MP George Osborne was among the first to read it.

He presented a copy of The Boat People to him when they met at the Conservative constituency office in Knutsford.

Shiv, of Kings Road, Wilmslow, is a former journalist in both India and the UK.

His book The Boat People is about a group of Indians who arrive in the UK from India in the 1960s and follows their life stories.

Shiv said: "It is about the north/south divide from an immigrant’s point of view.

"Basically, people in the south help you cross the road but people in the north cross the road to help you."

Shiv turned to writing fiction after a lifetime in journalism on national newspapers.

He is married to Penny Chandion, a hospital consultant and has a son, Shachin, a teacher.

Born in Simla, India, Shiv was educated in Delhi and Bombay before taking a master’s degree in philosophy at Punjab University.

He started his career in journalism in Bombay and came to Britain in 1964 to join the Western Mail, the national newspaper of Wales, as a copy editor.

He moved to the Morning Telegraph in Sheffield before going on to Manchester where he joined the Daily Telegraph.

Shiv has done a stint in the Middle East and helped in the launch of the Saudi Gazette at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

On his return a few months later he joined the Daily Mirror and worked there for eleven years.

His last job was as a columnist on the Guardian Weekly, a international digest of The Guardian.

In between jobs, he was editor of the Mancunian Indian and editor of Indiamail, a weekly newspaper published from London for the Indian community in the UK.

He said he was among the last journalists to interview Mrs Margaret Thatcher inside No 10 Downing Street before she stepped down as Prime Minister and he interviewed Chris Patten, when he was Conservative party chairman.