I was born in 1928 in St Kitts in what was then the British West Indies, the son of Norman Peyton Birch and Iris Berkeley King. My father was the accountant at the St Kitts branch of Barclays Bank; my mother's family had been in the West Indies for nearly 300 years. They named me Christopher Berkeley Peyton Birch and called me Christopher. My friends call me Chris.

Ten years in St Kitts were followed by seven years in Trinidad and a year in Barbados before going to England in 1946. At Bristol University I joined the Communist Party and met and fell in love with a very wonderful woman who married me in 1950. I stayed with the Communist Party for four decades; my wife and I celebrated our golden wedding anniversary in 2000. We have two wonderful children and four amazing grandchildren.

Most of my working life, I have been a journalist. I was editor of a local government weekly for 13 years; I taught journalism at the London College of Printing now known as the London College of Communications; I was a sub-editor on the Morning Star.

I worked at London Lighthouse in the early days of the HIV epidemic, and represented Lighthouse at Princess Diana's funeral, walking with others behind her coffin.

On behalf of my uncle, I put up a memorial to the Countess of Pembroke in Westminster Abbey in 1992 and fell in love with the Abbey in the course of the long negotiations with the Dean and Chapter.

For several years I did voluntary work every week at London Lighthouse, Terrence Higgins Trust, the Kobler HIV Clinic at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and Westminster Abbey, while continuing my family history research. I still work as a volunteer at the Abbey.

In May 2007 I was elected a governor of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and that now takes up quite a lot of my time.

In 2010 my autobiography was published by the St Christopher Press: My Life: The Caribbean, Communism, Budapest 1956, journalism, HIV/Aids, London Lighthouse, Diana's funeral, Westminster Abbey, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and much more by Chris Birch (ISBN 978-0-9545721-1-2, 240pp, 28 photographs, £15). Order from www.StChristopherPress.com

If there’s anything else you’d like to know, you can get in touch with me at:
chris@chrisbirch.me.uk