Jet set winters in Cape Town
About Sharon
Why write a biography? It only pins you down. Suffice to say I was born in Africa. And already that’s seeing the world without its skin. My father was the local gynaecologist. My mother was born in Strasbourg. My grandmother lived with us. In many ways I loved my childhood but not in others. I would have been cheating myself if I hadn’t left to study English literature in Britain. Before that I was lucky enough to live in Paris on the threshold of womanhood, in the spring, on my own, and of course that stays with you forever. We ate well and cheaply and I learnt to love wine and got engaged. At Edinburgh I got a First class MA Honours and the Janet Christie Bequest to study abroad. So we drove to Florence and lived in an old farmhouse for 8 months, learning Italian, studying at the British Institute.
In the slipstream of your life you imagine you’ll be a great writer, another Virginia Woolf, have the perfect family, be the best mother. So many impossible aims. I ended up being a journalist. A mother to one daughter. A lover. As a journalist I did quite a lot of good in the beginning. Campaigning stories, saving a horribly mistreated lioness in Italy, seals in the Hebrides, premature babies at Dulwich hospital in need of incubators, endangered leatherback turtles in Tobago. I have done a lot of travel articles, restaurant and hotel reviews, and many years of exciting seat-of-the pants Showbiz stories, travelling with Freddie Mercury, Rod Steward, Spandau Ballet, interviewing Angelina Jolie, Leonardo di Caprio, Bono, Jude Law. Now I’m writing a novel set in Venice and its working title is Behind the Mirror. With a novel, which takes years to write, you’re not the same person at the end of the book as you were at the beginning. The story has changed, the characters are deeper, but you have changed with them. You fall in love with all of them. I’m nearly ready to say goodbye to them and let them stand on their own.
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Tracey Emin
Britain’s leading contemporary artist talks monogamy and why these days, she’s keeping her bed neatly made. It was her unmade bed with the sordid, stained sheets, used condoms and overflowing ashtray that rocketed Tracey Emin to fame. This, the sad aftermath of her early nervous breakdown. Twelve years later Tracey tells Coutts Woman that she … Continued
Our Plan
We haven’t been able to raise the large amount needed to send our undercover agent to Tobago to get footage of a clandestine slaughter. But the vital, though horrific, pictures of a turtle slaughter, and one that happened just days ago on a prominent Tobago beach, have dropped on my doorstep. So gruesome one can … Continued
How i fell for my ‘Peaches Cohen’
She had a turbulent childhood following her mother’s death, but Peaches Geldof – who tragically died on Monday at the age of 25 – looked to be finally settling down after tying the knot with a nice Jewish boy and celebrating the arrival of two beautiful sons. In 2012, ahead of the birth of their … Continued
World exclusive: my hell by Reeva’s heartbroken mum
I’m obsessed with looking at Oscar… watching all the dramatic vomiting, the crying. Seeing the hero who has become the devil Grieving take her eyes off Oscar Pistorius June Steenkamp cannot ON THE VERDICT – even though she goes through hell every time she watches one of his dramatic courtroom outbursts. The heartbroken mother has … Continued
Adam does the school run with Justin Bieber
Special report: How Justin Bieber’s mentor is transforming lives Justin Bieber’s mentor, Adam Braun, quit Wall Street to launch a charity that’s opened 200 schools in Laos, Ghana and Guatemala. Sharon Feinstein reports Justin Bieber’s mentor, Adam Braun, drew on his Jewish values when he walked away from a lucrative career to build schools in … Continued
It’s LA DOLCE VITA, to the power of three!
I feel like Virginia Woolf on the Grand Tour, arriving in Rome with Venice and Milan to come. The Eternal City is where Woolf said she would come to die. But nothing really dies in this glorious city of ghosts, where centuries are laid bare across the seven hills. There is the huge Colosseum where … Continued
Acid Attack – British police join the hunt
New hope for Katie and Kirstie as Zanzibar finally asks UK cops to help catch their evil attackers There was fresh hope this week for the families of two teenage girls attacked with acid in Zanzibar last year, as the African island paved the way for British detectives to help catch the perpetrators. Six … Continued