September scoops 'evocative' memoir by Cellan-Jones

September Publishing has scooped Rory Cellan-Jones’ "tender" memoir titled Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC. 

Publisher Hannah MacDonald acquired world English language rights from Elly James at H H B Agency. The memoir will be published in hardback, e-book and audiobook in autumn 2023. 

The publisher wrote: "Rory, the BBC’s technology correspondent for many years and author of Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era (Bloomsbury Continuum), was the child of a love affair between two BBC employees – James Cellan-Jones, later to be director of the ’Forsythe Saga’ and ’Fortunes of War’ and Sylvia Rich, an older colleague in the drama department."   

"This is a tender account of a relationship between two colleagues, between their son and his mother and also of the centrifugal force at the centre of their lives – the BBC itself," said MacDonald. "I found the proposal both evocative and moving – from the glamour of 50’s television studios to the tough isolation of a single working mother and her child, Rory, who was raised with only the scantest, news-clipping knowledge of his father."