Christian Tyler is a former staff writer of the Financial Times of London. He is the author of Wild West China: the

Taming of Xinjiang, and of Making Music: Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. He edited A

Figure in the Landscape, the autobiography of Fred Cuming, R.A. He is married to Ciaran Madden, lives in West Dorset

and enjoys playing the piano and organ.