Matthew Parris

Matthew Francis Parris (born 7 August 1949 in Johannesburg) is an English journalist and former Conservative politician. Parris is the eldest of six children (three brothers and two sisters) and grew up in several British colonies where his father was working as an electrical engineer (South Africa, Cyprus, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Swaziland and Jamaica). He attended Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland. His parents ended up working and living in C... more

Matthew Francis Parris (born 7 August 1949 in Johannesburg) is an English journalist and former Conservative politician. Parris is the eldest of six children (three brothers and two sisters) and grew up in several British colonies where his father was working as an electrical engineer (South Africa, Cyprus, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Swaziland and Jamaica). He attended Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland. His parents ended up working and living in Catalonia, an autonomous region of Spain, where he also bought a house. At the age of 19, Parris drove across Africa to Europe in a Morris Oxford; the trip was traumatically punctuated when he and the girl he was travelling with were attacked, and he was forced to witness her rape. After obtaining a first class degree in law from Clare College, Cambridge, he studied international relations at Yale University. He was offered a job as a spy, but worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for two years. In 1976 he left this secure career... less