About Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy Thomas is a novelist and has written screenplays for television and film.
His many and varied jobs have included hospital theatre technician, trainee copywriter, cheese waiter, record plugger at Decca and indie label boss. He lives in West London and Greece.
In 2006 he was executive producer of the BBC2 documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, and brought out two books: You Don’t Have to Be Famous to Have Manic Depression: An Insider’s Guide to Mental Health (with Dr. Tony Hughes), and his first novel, the darkly comic Taking Leave.
Born in London in 1954 and educated by Benedictine monks in Somerset, Jeremy Thomas was inspired to write after reading Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man on Worthing Beach at 16.
Having subsequently failed as a cheese waiter, he went on to assemble heart bypass kits in the operating theatre of the National Heart Hospital – a hospital which curiously no longer exists.
Worthy ideas of teaching were swept aside by the hip world of advertising and Jeremy joined J Walter Thompson, but realising that the only ad he was ever going to write would be for Exchange and Mart he jumped ship to plug records for Decca Records. He went on to promote artists including Al Green, Caravan, Thin Lizzy, John Entwistle and the Moody Blues to John Peel, Tony Blackburn et al.
By the age of 21 he was running a record label. For the next twenty years Jeremy ran various labels with artists as well known as John Williams and James Brown, and worked with genres such as psychobilly, crusty and acid jazz and artists like Johnny Thunders, The Cramps, Guana Batz and The Levellers. He unleashed Technotronic’s Pump up the Jam on an unsuspecting Soviet public. He was also the man who turned down Kate Bush.
Jeremy has always been fascinated by murder and had been writing short crime stories since his late teens, which eventually led to offers and commissions (Someone’s Been Done Up Harley and One of our Meters is Missing) to write for film and TV, including episodes for a children’s TV series on Channel 5.
After a stint as a broke Joycean writer, living down and out in LA and Vancouver, Jeremy retreated to the Greek island of Patmos to focus on writing. In the meantime, due to his own battles with the illness, he also co-produced a documentary about manic depression with Dr Tony Hughes and Stephen Fry, and co-wrote (with Hughes) You Don’t Have to Be Famous to Have Manic Depression: An Insider’s Guide to Mental Health (Michael Joseph/Penguin, September 2006).
Jeremy is not the only literary star in his family; his grandfather HH Thomas (son of Queen Victoria’s favourite gardener) was the author of thirty-two gardening bestsellers, including the unforgettable Making Love to Mother Earth.
Happily married, he lives in West London and Greece with his wife and their black Labrador dog, Ecco. Taking Leave is his first novel.
If I ruled the world
What would be your first act as ruler?
I’d make it compulsory for every person over the age of eighteen to spend one day a month working in a hospital – to gain some perspective. I’d also fast track an Act through Parliament saying anyone caught with any form of gun other than a licensed shotgun should be instantly deported to a holiday camp known as Putin’s in Eastern Siberia.
Who would be your most trusted adviser?
I would probably appoint my wife Jane to head a committee of my six closest friends – needed for their knowledge, balance, wisdom, and cool heads.
Who would you banish?
I would banish all the producers and contestants of all ‘Reality’ Television – for their own good they’d have to go and work with VSO and see what real ‘reality’ is like for others in the world. Or they could choose to spend five years at Putin’s. Also all bullies and the people responsible for implementing parking restrictions throughout the United Kingdom.
Would you be a dictator or a benevolent leader?
I’d be a benevolent dictator with my own secret kitchen cabinet. The buck has to stop somewhere and someone has to stand up and be counted in life.
Who would you single out for a knighthood and why?
John Curd, the legendary British concert promoter of the last thirty years. He started promoting concerts at the Roundhouse in the early 1970s and has kept going, promoting very interesting British and American acts like Run DMC, Talking Heads, Red Hot Chilli Peppers; and he promoted Eminem here, as well as resurrecting the Godfather of Soul (James Brown)’s career.
Who would you send to the Tower or put in the stocks?
I would send the editor of the News of the World to the Tower for a head change. And any young person found intimidating or frightening elderly people into the stocks outside any Tesco superstore.
Which law would you abolish?
Foxhunting. The new laws are ridiculous and have far more to do with certain people wanting to turn Great Britain into a bland nanny state.
Which law would you introduce?
I would ban cars from all city centres and introduce free bicycles and reintroduce trams.
Which building would you demolish and why?
I’m afraid that buildings on the South Side of the Thames that are described as ‘new luxury apartments’ would all be airbrushed out from the horizon.
Which ruler or monarch do you most admire or have most in common with?
Robert Peel for putting principles before party. The current Queen for keeping her head and being consistent. And whoever is ruling the Amish community in America.
If you could change the national anthem for another piece of music what would it be and why?
Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s What the World Needs Now (is love sweet love).
Reviews
"Jeremy Thomas is a complete original. His writing, like his life, is a whirlwind of brilliance, wonder and blunder, by turns, hilarious and terrifying. Highly recomended".
Stephen Fry
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