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Midnight Carnival: The Maze of Shadows

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70 pages, Paperback

Published September 18, 2024

About the author

Edward Heath

120 books2 followers
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was an English Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to February 1974 and as Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975.

Heath was a keen yachtsman. He bought his first yacht Morning Cloud in 1969 and won the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race that year. He captained Britain's winning team for the Admiral's Cup in 1971 – while Prime Minister – and also captained the team in the 1979 Fastnet race. He was a member of the Sailing Club in his home town, Broadstairs. Heath's hobby is referred to in the 2008 film The Bank Job where it is said that the Prime Minister himself may meet with the bank robbers "if you can drag him off his yacht"

Heath also maintained an interest in orchestral music as an organist and conductor, famously installing a Steinway grand in 10 Downing Street – bought with his £450 Charlemagne Prize money, awarded for his unsuccessful efforts to bring Britain into the EEC in 1963, and chosen on the advice of his friend, the pianist Moura Lympany – and conducting Christmas carol concerts in Broadstairs every year from his teens until old age. Heath often played the organ for services at Holy Trinity Church Brompton in his early years.

Heath enjoyed the performing arts as a whole. In particular, he gave a great deal of support to performing arts causes in his constituency and was known to be proud of the fact that his constituency boasted two of the country's leading performing arts schools. Rose Bruford College and Bird College are both situated in Sidcup, and a purpose built facility for the latter was officially opened by Heath in 1979.
Heath also wrote a book called The Joy of Christmas: A Collection of Carols, published in 1978 by Oxford University Press and including the music and lyrics to a wide variety of Christmas carols each accompanied by a reproduction of a piece of religious art and a short introduction by Heath.

He wrote three non-political books, Sailing, Music, and Travels, and an autobiography, The Course of My Life (1998). Heath's Daily Telegraph obituary noted that his autobiography "had involved dozens of researchers and writers (some of whom he never paid) over many years".

Unusually for someone who lived in the South of England, Heath was a supporter of the Lancashire football club Burnley, and just after the end of his term as prime minister in 1974 he opened the £450,000 Bob Lord Stand at the club's Turf Moor stadium.

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