Dr Colin Shindler

Colin Shindler has maintained an active interest in twentieth century American and British social and cultural history whilst pursuing a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and motion pictures, and as an author of books and journalism for forty years. He also teaches a variety of adult education courses at Madingley and Higham Hall in Cumbria on film and its relation to modern British and American social and cultural history.  His latest book Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches: The Controversial South Africa Cricket Tour of 1970 was short listed for the MCC/Wisden Cricket Book of the Year. He is probably best known for his childhood memoir Manchester United Ruined My Life which was short listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He wrote the screenplay for the feature film Buster starring Phil Collins & Julie Walters and was the producer of such television dramas as Lovejoy, Wish Me Luck and A Little Princess for which he won a Bafta award and Young Charlie Chaplin starring Twiggy which was nominated for a U.S. Prime Time Emmy. He lectured for the Cambridge University History Faculty on film and history between 1998 and 2019. His recent radio plays have been on the German film director Leni Riefenstahl ( Leni Goes to Hollywood, R4 August 2021), P.G. Wodehouse (How To Be An Internee) and Private Eye & The Profumo Affair (Rumours). His books include Hollywood Goes To War: Films & American Society 1939-1952 and Hollywood in Crisis: Films & American Society 1929-1939. His non-fiction novel Garbo & Gilbert in Love was an imaginative reconstruction of the infamous relationship of the two MGM stars.  He is currently writing Hollywood Nazis, the television dramatisation of his non-fiction novel set in Hollywood during the making of the controversial Warner Brothers film Confessions of a Nazi Spy.