Christina Lamb - from Afghanistan to the Prince Rupert Hotel

As a foreign correspondent, Christina Lamb has spent her adult life reporting from some of the world’s most troubled areas. However, her latest book, The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless, is set, not in a war zone, but in the Shropshire town of Shrewsbury. It tells the story of a four-star hotel with four poster beds which became a home for rough sleepers as part of the government’s ‘Everyone In’ programme during the recent Covid lockdown.

Christina will tell the story of how the hotel’s owners and the new residents - many of whom had been out of housing for decades – ended up transforming each other's lives. It is described as a “heartwarming and heartbreaking tale” which “gives a panoramic insight into this country, its people and how they are often failed.”

Christina will also talk about her career as a foreign correspondent and her book “Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women” (2020, Harper Collins)