About

Robert Nurden is an author and journalist who has worked, both as a feature writer and subeditor, on the Guardian, Independent on Sunday and Daily Telegraph, as well as many other national newspapers and magazines. He has written about, among other things, worker exploitation in the international garment trade, reindeer herding in the Arctic, racial stereotyping by the Western media and cider-making in Herefordshire.

In the 1980s he was employed in the aid and development sector as press officer of the charity VSO. As a travel writer and backpacker, he visited 60 countries including a spell as a volunteer on a leprosy project in India. Now, in an effort to reduce his global footprint, he spends most of his time in Britain, living in east London.

Like many journalists involved in day-to-day news operations, he hankered after the big project. In 2018 he found it by writing Between Heaven and Earth: A Journey With My Grandfather (ISBN: 9781838447700), the biography of his controversial relative, Stanley James. His research took him to Canada where his grandfather was a cowboy and to many archives in England and Wales where he discovered some uncomfortable truths about the Rev Stanley B James. The book was published in September 2020.

His next non-fiction book, which was published in September 2023, was very different. Titled I Always Wanted To Be A Dad: Men Without Children (ISBN: 9781838447731), it describes the author’s experience of never becoming the father he always longed to be. A collaboration with other childless men and women, this highly unusual book charts in raw detail the pain and regret associated with this little recognised issue. Childbirth – and its absence – is quite naturally associated with women but men can feel just as much anguish when parenthood passes them by. The heartfelt testimonies of other childless-not-by-choice men punctuate the main narrative. And there is a comprehensive list of organisations which can help people who find themselves in this situation. The book, while shining a much-needed light on men without children, works towards a hard-won acceptance and awareness that a very different – and optimistic – future can lie ahead.