John Redmond

John Redmond was born in 1953, the son, grandson and great-grandson of miners, and grew up in a South Yorkshire mining village in the 1950s and 1960s. He has lived in Worcester for the last 30 years. He graduated from the Universities of Cardiff and Warwick and lectured at the University of Birmingham for 30 years, the last thirteen of which as Professor of European Studies. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease at the age of 42 in 1995 and took early retirement on ill health grounds at the...See more

John Redmond was born in 1953, the son, grandson and great-grandson of miners, and grew up in a South Yorkshire mining village in the 1950s and 1960s. He has lived in Worcester for the last 30 years. He graduated from the Universities of Cardiff and Warwick and lectured at the University of Birmingham for 30 years, the last thirteen of which as Professor of European Studies. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease at the age of 42 in 1995 and took early retirement on ill health grounds at the age of 57 in 2010. While his career has been based on the traditional three Rs: reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic, his leisure has been concerned with three Rs of his own: rock music, real ale and rugby union. Inevitably, all of these interests feature to some extent in this book. He has published numerous academic books but 'The Alternative Christmas Letters' is his first foray into non-academic territory. He celebrates his 40th wedding anniversary in 2018, with the same wife he had at the beginning, and they have four children and four grandchildren. See less