I've written about travel and aviation for some 50 years, reporting on the growing pains of the package holiday business, the opening of China and the Soviet Union to tourists and the new found popularity of America. I chronicled the rise and fall of entrepreneurs including Sir Freddie Laker, the advent of low cost airlines and was a passenger on British Airway's first commercial Concorde flight. A former travel editor on London's Evening Standard, I have contributed to a wide range of publications, including the Financial Times, Guardian and Mail on Sunday.  I'm a member and former chair of the British Guild of Travel Writers and hav won various awards, among them one for a lifetime contribution to travel writing. I was joint author of Flight to the Sun, a history of the explosion in UK post war holiday travel and am an independent member of a committee advising the Government on financial protection for travellers booking air holidays. I've skied in some 140 resorts, run at least 350 routes from Chile to China and am a keen hiker, a Francophile – and have supported Fulham Football Club for 65 years through thick and thin – mostly thin.