Gary Mead Biography

A graduate of the University of Newcastle on Tyne, Gary Mead started his journalistic career by reporting on the rise of Solidarity and the imposition of martial law in Poland for New Statesman, The Observer and various other publications. He then joined the BBC World Service as a writer on East Europe. Subsequently he moved to Granada TV and spent a year in South Africa making a documentary history of apartheid. He then joined the Financial Times, initially as the paper’s correspondent in Argentina. He was head of research for the World Gold Council and spent time in Washington D.C.  as Media Director for the International Institute of Finance. His accessible books on military history are designed for interested general readers – the latest, Unbeatable, Unbearable is a life of the British soldier Bernard Montgomery. It will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026

How I Found the Agency

I think of my career, indeed my life, as a series of accidental encounters that turn out to be very fruitful. I started writing book reviews for the Financial Times when I was a reporter with the paper. I knew that I wanted to write books but didn't want to write for my desk drawer. J.D.F. Jones, the avuncular Weekend editor of the paper told me I needed an agent. That's how I met Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson. Christopher, now sadly dead, was a graceful presence in my life, always open to ideas, supportive and kind, generous in his praise. Andrew has now inherited Christopher's agency and - I am glad to say - has agreed to inherit me too. "Together we will do great things" he told me after our meeting. Precisely what an author wants to hear from their agent.