Chasing an alcoholic father around the UK – and attending nine different schools in the process – may not have been the best start to life for Ian Bain. But it certainly gave him a taste for adventure. By 23, he’d sailed around the world a couple of times, risked jail as a big-time booze smuggler in India and worked as the Buenos Aires correspondent of The Economist. Then, after a decade as a journalist in London with some of Britain’s biggest newspapers, life really got interesting.
Ian’s own slide into drink and despair took him to the Arabian Gulf in the belief that living there would be dry in every sense. It wasn’t. Fired twice by local newspapers, he checked himself into a Dubai psychiatric ward where he was shocked to see patients handcuffed to the water pipes and guards with batons. Not the kind of rehab he’d imagined.
Emerging sober but broke, Ian talked a benevolent bank manager into lending him just enough to start his own public relations company. The firm’s birth pangs were both painful and comical and could have ended abruptly when Ian was threatened with deportation. In time he built it into one of the most successful PR consultancies in the Middle East with clients such as General Motors, Airbus, Samsung, Emirates Airline and the Government of Dubai.
Commercial success didn’t end his affection for adventure. Helping to smuggle an Arab rally driver across tightly controlled European borders was hardly conducive to a quiet life. Nor was narrowly avoiding capture as Saddam’s forces moved to seize Kuwait airport. There were business risks too, like the gamble he took in resigning a million-dollar-a-year PR account.
Regardless of acclaim as a writer and PR strategist, Ian carried a secret shame through his long career: an entrenched belief rooted in his turbulent childhood that he wasn’t – and never would be – good enough. It got to the point where he gave away substantial sums of money because he felt he didn’t deserve to have it, and failed to collect fees for the same reason.
Eventually, Ian gave up the business and the comfortable life in Dubai to focus on healing the deep emotional wounds of his early years.
And there began another remarkable adventure.
SINGING IN THE LIFEBOAT is the poignant, often funny, immensely readable story of a man searching for himself.
Imprint: Mosaique Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 140mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 290g
ISBN: 9781906852429
ISBN 10: 1906852421
Pages: 246
Publication Date: 01 July 2018
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 11 1. Sins of the father 15 2. Something of an education 21 3. The house in Parrock Street 26 4. Read all about it 29 5. My role in the Cuban missile crisis 34 6. Smugglers three 41 7. Man of mystery 47 8. The night editor 52 9. Me and Big Jock 59 10. Express delivery 66 11. Messing about in the Channel 75 12. Telegraph blues 80 13. All at sea 87 14. A man of fine words 93 15. Hard times in the Gulf 98 16. Drunk in Dubai 105 17. Abu Dhabi or bust 111 18. Roger and out 118 19. Staying one jump ahead 125 20. The only game in town 130 21. Salmon days 139 22. In the fast lane 144 23. My friend James 150 24. A passage to India 153 25. The last old lady of the Raj 160 26. Flying into trouble 167 27. Riders of the storm 173 28. The eyes have it 179 29. Going to blazes with GM 186 30. Fire and ice 194 31. A fool and his money 199 32. The strange stuff starts here 204 33. A most unusual school 211 34. A long and winding road 219 35. Out of the game 225 36. Goodbye Dubai 231 37. French leave 236 Epilogue 243 Afterword 245
Ian Bain was born in Scotland. Except for a brief interlude in the merchant navy, he worked in journalism and public relations in the UK, South America and the Middle East for close to 40 years. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and dog.
Reviews for Singing in the Lifeboat
Written with warmth, charm and a great deal of humour. Not only a memoir, but an homage to times gone by. I was captivated by Mr Bain's reminiscences, and his skill as a professional writer shines through in every paragraph. - RJ Ellory, multi-award-winning author of A Quiet Belief in Angels and a dozen other best-sellers; Unsettlingly honest. - Brian Freemantle, best-selling author of the Charlie Muffin series of espionage novels; Really excellent writing and compelling story-telling. Ian Bain displays a journalist's eye for the telling detail as he lays his life bare in this extremely readable memoir. Forensic honesty and a deal of good humour. - Richard McNeill, author of What Genius Wrote This?; This is the extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. Ian's story is poignant, funny, startling and beautifully written. - Tony Boullemier, author of The Little Book of Monarchs; Ian Bain tells a gripping story with drama and a keen sense of the absurd. There's the tough personal story of a writer's life here - the story of a professional, told by a professional. You finish the book with a deep breath, and the feeling that you've been in the company of a good friend.v- Andrew Taylor, author of Books That Changed the World and others
