OUR BOOKS
We have written numerous books over the years, along with our journalism, television work and training. We list them here, together with a selection of the outstanding reviews we have won. We have included books published by the Sunday Times where Peter was the main author or a co-author, others where he was a co-author, and a number of anthologies that we edited.
COLLAR THE LOT!
1978
Our book Collar the Lot, published in 1978, revealed the untold WW2 story of how Britain interned the refugees who had sought sanctuary from Hitler. Nearly 30,000 were locked up and several thousand were deported - a policy that ended in tragedy when the Arandora Star was torpedoed and almost a thousand internees were drowned. As well as uncovering new and illuminating documents in the official archives, we interviewed former internees in Britain, the US and Australia. The pick of the reviews was by the eminent historian A.J.P. Taylor, who wrote in the Observer: "Peter and Leni Gillman have done a fine job in breaking through the clouds of official concealment....The personal narratives are staggering in their impact."
ALIAS DAVID BOWIE
1988
Our pioneering biography of David Bowie was the first to research his early years, the period in the 1960s when he was struggling to find a musical identity, and his breakthrough to stardom in the 1970s. The book courted controversy by linking Bowie's multiple role-playing and his explorations of insanity to his family history and the fate of his half-brother Terry, the inspiration for Bowie's compelling song The Bewlay Brothers. It has been widely cited by biographers since. Here are some of the reviews:
New Record Mirror: "Stunningly and thoroughly researched - a truly icon-smashing portrait emerges."
Sounds: "The wealth of detail on Bowie's career is astonishing...portrays the power games and manipulation endemic to rock superstars, which most insiders and rock journalists are too enthralled or blinkered by to care about."
Times Literary Supplement (Charles ShaarMurray): "Biographies written by rock music critics rarely display the journalistic professionalism which is Peter and Leni Gillman's stock-in-trade. It is almost impossible to imagine any pop journalist having the patience, expertise and tenacity to locate and collate the kind of information presented in this book."
THE WILDEST DREAM
2000
In 2000, our biography of the Everest pioneer George Mallory was published. This followed the discovery of his body high on Everest the year before. There was renewed interest in his life and his fate, but our biography stood out for the new research we had conducted and the fresh insights into his emotions and motivations. The core of the story was the conflict he faced between his desire to climb Everest and his love for his wife Ruth and their three young children. In 1924 he attempted to resolve the conflict in a final summit bid with his young climbing partner Sandy Irvine, only to meet disaster somewhere near the top. The book won the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, and attracted outstanding reviews, many from acclaimed mountain writers.
Joe Simpson: "Compelling and evocative"
Jon Krakauer: "Impeccably researched, beautifully written and a delight to read"
Jan Morris: "This exemplary biography.."
Tom Hornbein: "A grand journey, insightful, concise, moving"
EXTREME EIGER
2016
In 2016, to mark the approaching fiftieth anniversary of one of the most dramatic climbs in mountaineering history, our account of the Eiger Direct ascent of 1966 was published. It recounted how two teams - one British/American, one German - set off in competition to make the first direct route up the notorious North Face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps. Following a dramatic series of events, the two teams combined their efforts to make one final push. Peter reported these events for the Daily Telegraph in 1966, and was a member of the British/US team, then wrote a book, Eiger Direct, with the Scottish climber Dougal Haston. Almost fifty years on he and Leni revisited the story, this time combining accounts from five of the eight German team-members still alive. The result shed remarkable new light on that extraordinary drama, and Extreme Eiger won the Best Book award from the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild in 2016.
Tom Hornbein: "Gripping, moving, exhausting"
Jim Curran: "Compelling and well-written"
Julie Summers: "Utterly compelling, so vivid that it is vertigo-inducing" Wade Davis: "A story of courage and competition, triumph and tragedy...Every new book by Peter and Leni Gillman is a cause for celebration"
EIGER DIRECT
1966
This it the original account of the Direct ascent of the Eiger North Face in 1966, written by Peter in partnership with Dougal Haston, the Scottish member of the British/American team. It was praised for its drama and immediacy, with Haston providing his reports on events on the mountain, Peter relating the tale from Kleine Scheidegg, where he acted as both Daily Telegraph reporter and base camp manager. Chris Bonington's dramatic photographs brought a further vivid element. The story was told however almost entirely from the point of the view of the British/American team, reflecting the competitve gap with the eight-man German team which prevailed almost throughout the ascent. It remains a remarkable testament to an extraordionary feat of endeavour and survival, and signed copies are now valuable collector's items. Alos published in US, France, Italy, Japan.
EIGER DIRECT
2018
In 2108, the original version of Eiger Direct was republished by Vertebrate Press. The new version contains a fresh introduction by Peter, explaining the circumstances in which the book was written. It was completed in a matter of weeks. Peter wrote and typed the main narrative, drawing on Dougal Haston's hand-written reports of events on the mountain, even though Haston was still recovering from frost-bitten fingers.
TO TAKE ARMS
1973
Maria McGuire was for a time a key member of the Provisional IRA, the militant group fighting to expel the British from Northern Ireland. Her most spectacular feat was to take part in a gun-running expedition to Amsterdam in the company of David O'Connell, one of the movement's leaders. She then became a defector, who provided a startling account of her activities in the Observer newspaper. Soon afterwards this book was published in her name, in the UK and US. It was in fact written on her behalf by Peter, although his part in the enterprise was only made public in 2008. Until then Maria had been living in Croydon where she had married a friend of Peter's named Meryvn Gatland. As Maria Gatland, she became a Conservative councillor in Croydon, but was finally outed in 2008. Peter described these events in an article for the Sunday Times - revealing that he had asked Mervyn to provide Maria with a safe house, leading eventually to their marriage.
THE PLUMBAT AFFAIR
1978
In 1978 we told how, ten years before, clandestine Israeli operators hijacked a massive load of uranium ore that was being transported across the Mediterranean. It provided Israel with the crucial raw material it needed for its nuclear weapons programme. The operation was conducted in utmost secrecy but, building on research originally conducted at the Sunday Times, we revealed the full story. We did so with Peter's Sunday Times colleague Paul Eddy and US journalist Elaine Davenport. Peter visited Norway where the Israeli secret service Mossad had assassinated a Moroccan waiter in the mistaken belief he was Ali Hassan Salameh, one of the Palestinians behind the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It was an Israeli agent arrested by the Norwegian police who revealed key details of Operation Plumbat. And in 1978, in a chilling encounter, Peter - then engaged in another Sunday Times investigation - met Salameh at the headquarters of the PLO in Beirut. Salameh was assassinated by Mossad agents in Beirut a few months later. Also published in US, Denmark, France.
Kirkus Reviews: "Bristles with irony and fascinating detail"
Amazon review: "What a great book - reads like a movie script"
FITNESS ON FOOT
1978
This book was sheer fun. Peter was commissioned to contribute to a fitness series commissioned and published by the Sunday Times. At the time our family were keen hill-walkers, and so we undertook a wonderful day-long outing in Snowdonia when we climbed Tryfan and traversed the Glyders, thus reaching three of Wales's 3,000ft summits. We were accompanied by the Sunday Times photographer Chris Smith, who provided the cover shot and an evocative photo sequence inside the book. Peter also wrote advice on how to keep fit through walking, and how to stay safe at the same time. The four of us on the cover (left to right) are sons Danny and Seth, then Leni and Peter. We walked together as a family through the years, and Peter eventually climbed all the 3,000ft peaks in Scotland - known as Munros, there are 283 in the current list.
SIEGE!
1980
On 30 April 1980, six armed men stormed Iran's London Embassy in South Kensington. They took 26 people hostage and demanded the independence of Khuzestan Province in Iran. On the sixth day of the ensuing siege, the gunmen murdered one of their hostages and threw his body into the street. Shortly afterwards a squad formed by the British Special Air Squadron, or SAS, smashed their way into the building. They shot all but one of the gunmen and rescued all but one of the hostages. These dramatic events were all the more significant for being the first time the SAS had operated openly on British soil. The Sunday Times Insight team wrote a book about the event which set a British publishing record by being on sale within a week of the siege ending. Peter was the team's lead writer and performed a 48-hour writing stint, broken only by a few hours sleep on the second night.
THE FALKLANDS WAR
1982
It is said that journalism is the first draft of history - and the Sunday Times Insight made its next contribution with an account of the 1982 Falklands War. Peter covered much of the war from Washington, reporting on political and diplomatic events as the war progressed. He was one of three authors who wrote the book, sharing the credits with Paul Eddy and Magnus Linklater. Peter's chapter on the Battle of Goose Green was acclaimed for its mastery in reporting the drama and poignancy of war.
CLOUDS FROM BOTH SIDES
1986
Julie Tullis was an accomplished and ambitious climber, one of the leading women in the sport. In 1986, after reaching the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain, she was trapped by a storm and died of exposure and high-altitude sickness. She had previously written her autobiography, Clouds from Both Sides. Peter, who knew Julie and her husband Terry, as well as her K2 climbing partner Kurt Diemberger, was commissioned to add a final chapter detailing the tragic events which led to her death.
THE DUTY MEN
1987
Peter wrote this book to accompany an exciting BBCtv series about the activities of the Investigation Division of the British Customs and Excise. The cases it covered ranged from suspected cocaine smuggling to the distilling of illegal poteen in North Ireland. Peter was on the scene for many of the arrests, partnered by photographer Alain le Garsmeur. The series, directed by Paul Hamann, achieved high ratings and the book did equally well. Peter dedicated the book to his father Charles Gillman, who was a Customs officer from 1919 to 1940. That included a stint at Croydon Airport, then London's main airport. His most celebrated moment came when he was the first person to board the plane flown by Amy Johnson, returning to Britain after making her intrepid solo flight to Australia in 1930.
IN BALANCE
1989
Peter first wrote about climbing and mountaineering in the 1960s, winning a reputation for covering these activities accurately and without undue sensationalism. He wrote for both the specialist and the national press, drawing on his experiences of mountains and mountaineering from Scotland to Patagonia. This anthology contains a selection of articles over a period of 20 years. The cover photograph, by John Cleare, shows Peter on the Jacob's Ladder route in the Cairngorms in 1967, when his climbing partner - out of sight at the top end of the rope - was the illustrious Tom Patey, one of the great pioneers and characters of Scottish winter mountaineering.
THE BUTCHER BIRD
1998
Our one foray into fiction (so far). We wrote this with Peter's former Sunday Times colleague Paul Eddy, using the pseudonym Simon Blake (SImon was Paul's son, Blake is our oldest grandson). It's a tense and pacey tale about a father's bid to find and recover his kidnapped daughter. We ended up writing most of the book ourselves, and it won a fabulous notice from the respected crime critic and writer Marcel Berlins, who wrote: "Exciting, fast-moving and intelligently plotted - a most impressive thriller debut."
EVEREST - best writing and pictures from 70 years
1993
Peter edited this anthology of writing and pictures from 70 years of Everest exploration and climbing. It starts with the members of the Indian Survey, who established that it was the world's highest mountain, and includes the inspiring early photograph taken by Claude White during a British military mission to Tibet in 1904. The pioneering expeditions of the 1920s, with George Mallory the star, are lavishly covered. There is a highly readable article by Leni on the geology of Everest, the product of the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates tens of millions of years ago. It lists all the ascents of Everest to that date, numbering 344. The introduction was written by Sir Edmund Hillary, Everest hero for making the first ascent of the mountain, with his partner Tenzing Norgay, in 1953.
EVEREST - 80 years of triumph and tragedy
2001
Peter produced a new, updated Everest anthology in 2001, by which time the listed ascents had reached 1318. It includes the account by Rebecca Stephens of the first British woman's ascent in 1993. It covers the disasters of 1996, when commercial expeditions attempting the mountain were hit by a savage storm, and five climbers died. And it includes the 1999 discovery of the body of George Mallory, the intrepid Everest pioneer who disappeared near the summit with his young partner Sandy Irvine in 1924, leaving the perpetual mystery of whether they could have reached the summit. The introduction to this edition is by Doug Scott, who together with Dougal Haston made the first ascent by British climbers in 1975.
EVEREST - a two-volume anthology
2021
Peter, partnered by Leni, was editor and contributor to this lavish two-volume anthology published by the Folio Society together with the Royal Geographical Society. He selected writing and photographs from five Everest expeditions: those in 1921, 1922, 1924, 1933 and 1953, producing a magnificent testament to human endeavour in quest of the world's highest summit. Peter wrote introductions to each section as well as 250 photo captions, a total of around 30,000 words. He did most of this during the Covid lockdown, handling the myriad problems that arose from working remotely. Ed Douglas, Alpine Journal editor, called it "an astonishing compendium, expertly edited by Peter Gillman...a magisterial undertaking".