Very Private and Public Relations

This is the autobiography of a Travel PR guru. In Very Public and Private Relations, Jim Dunn takes us on a rollicking ride from poor boy growing up gay in a small town on the west coast of Scotland to the five-star lifestyle of a PR guru in the fledgling travel industry of the early seventies in London.

Along the way he tells us about his life as a mummy's boy, his regular encounters on the Love Train home from Glasgow and his first love with a man in uniform. Gay boys don't like untidiness. His life quite literally 'took off' when he got his first job on the weekly newspaper Travel Trade Gazette. The fact that he admits he couldn't type, write or understand one end of PR from the other didn't stop him from creating the UK's leading travel and leisure PR consultancy over the next 3O years.

This book is a tour de force of Jim's life and work and is a fascinating insight into the travel business as we know it today - from the decidedly unglamorous British' Benidorm to Hong Kong and the Bahamas.

Jim Dunn has 40 years' experience in journalism and public relations and extensive knowledge of advising organisations in the corporate, travel and leisure, entertainment, property and financial sectors. His current business interest is in helping to build up a small group of luxury 5 star hotels in Europe but he still keeps his hand in at writing and contributes a regular columns on his travels around the world.

Jim Dunn's epic climb from Glaswegian poverty to millionaire status is the classic rags to riches story - with a very significant difference. Jim makes no secret of the dangers of being a gay man in repressive Scotland in the fifties. His honesty, humour and compassion in this frank autobiography will be an inspiration to gay people who still feel shunned in the modern world. I've known Jim for over 30 years. Now I know - and like - my friend even better.

Peter Hobday, broadcaster and former BBC Radio 4 Today programme host

There was no better company than JD... Very Private and Public Relations reflects his personality - witty, outrageous, fun, frank and unashamed. The book also reflects, humorously, the fledgling travel industry itself as we now know it, which in early days, with no history or experience to draw on, often lurched from success to disaster, living by the seat of its pants.

Jill Crawshaw, The Times, Travel Correspondent

Jim Dunn's book is fascinating, telling of an extraordinary journey which started with his early life in Gourock where he worked on the local newspaper's entertainment pages bringing much needed money into the family home. The travel PR industry was in its infancy then and he was a prime mover in its rapid growth with his dynamism and ingenuity. I so enjoyed working with him for many years on Wish You Were Here...? He was great fun to be with, and still is - inventive, demanding, outrageous. His book is not just an account of a remarkable life, it's the story of a hugely successful industry in which he played a vital part.

Judith Chalmers