19 Feb 2026
We ask a different figure from the local community to choose 10 questions to answer from a list of 50. This week: local author Nick Churton, whose new murder mystery The Art Department takes inspiration from his home town of St Albans, including the Cathedral, which is where he first took a creative writing class while in his late sixties. The Art Department is the second novel in a series harnessing the themes of art, period house, family mystery and espionage featuring Eliza Arrow – a former spy in her eighties.
If you could have a conversation with someone who had died who would it be?
My mum. Even now I want to call her and tell her some news or talk over something.
Time doesn’t change that desire. Fortunately I have a pretty clear idea of what she’d say on those occasions.
What object would you save first if your house was on fire?
My laptop. It has the draft manuscript of my next novel.
Are things getting better or worse?
I’m an optimist so things are getting better. Even when they don’t seem to be, in time they will probably turn around somehow. Life is bumpy but the ups usually outweigh the downs.
What was your first job?
As an estate agency office junior aged seventeen in Rickmansworth. Best first job ever. It set me on a career path in property that spanned 50 years and took me all over the world.
What was your best subject at school?
Humour.
Were you well behaved at school?
Not particularly. I was the schoolboy who spent most of his time looking out of the window day dreaming. Today they probably have a name for it. I spent my days wondering why I couldn’t spell and when or why I would ever use logarithms – I never have. An English teacher told me I wouldn’t pass CSE English. Now I’m writing novels.
But I had a nice time at school, especially on the sports field.
If you could travel back in time and offer your younger self some advice, what would it be?
Life isn’t a race. Good things happen if you let them. That’s not to say life doesn’t need a little encouragement now and then. Determination and drive help and so too does having a correct direction of travel. Opportunities arrive but one has to be able to recognise them and then grab them when they do.
Which three people, living or dead, would be your ideal dinner party guests?
I’m not sure that highbrow conversation is good for the digestion and current affairs
nowadays certainly aren’t. So, it’s the arts for me. Picasso makes me ask questions about his work – he could supply some answers. I regret not reading Jane Austen as a teenager. Had I done so perhaps I wouldn’t have made some early errors of judgement about people. Not only is Austen a great teacher but a wonderful storyteller. So too is Ian Fleming. Over brandy he could tell tales of when espionage came with glamour and cigarette holders.
Who is your favourite St Albans musician or band?
Easy. The Cathedral choir. The most sublime sound in the most magnificent building. St Albans at its best.
Most inspirational St Albans person – living or dead?
Bill Ritson, Canon at St Albans Cathedral, now sadly deceased. The perfect single word to describe him is joy.
