The Centre of the Bed

The story of Joan Bakewell's life and times spans the Blitz in Manchester, Cambridge during the glittering era of Michael Frayn, Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller et al, London at its sixties peak and the world of the media and the arts from the 60s to the present. Her career spans over 40 years, including 13 years as presenter of "Heart of the Matter", six years as BBC television's arts correspondent presenting for "Newsnight" and as the anchorwoman for BBC2's "Late Night Line Up" in the 1960s. As she reflects on the choices she has made and the influences that shaped her, she confronts painful memories of her mother's behaviour and describes both her affair with Harold Pinter and her two marriages. Throughout, she uses her own experiences to explore the extraordinary change in women's roles during her lifetime, to create a thought-provoking portrait of Britain since the 1940s.