Nigel Quiney

Social History With a Smile

This memoir of the 1970s started with a bang – ‘confession’ is certainly the word. Subsequently, this account was less interesting to the general reader than his previous books, being very much about family and personal friends. But once Nigel Quiney started recounting his business travels to China, India and the States in the 1970s, that was when his usual page-turning style returned.

Wonderful observations, an amusing slant on events and experiences – and most of all a fascinating look at how business in the Far East developed and changed in just 10 years. Nigel Quiney’s sense of humour, his eye for detail, his thoroughly moral and decent approach to both friends and business partners proves that you don’t have to be a money-grabbing mogul to succeed. I was fascinated by the development of his design and paper-manufacturing business – and his introduction of plastics to the world of everyday shopping.

And of course, this being the memoir of a gay man who travelled frequently to the States, it would not have been complete without an account of how gay life expanded there until it virtually imploded on itself. This book ends with the arrival of AIDS. I have a feeling that the next episode in Nigel Quiney’s series of memoirs is going to be even more compelling.