John Van der Kiste
John Van der Kiste (born 15 September 1954 in Wendover, Buckinghamshire) is a British author, son of Wing Commander Guy Van der Kiste (1912–99). He was educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton, where he briefly formed a rock band Cobweb with fellow pupil Miles Tredinnick, later the vocalist with the new wave band London and subsequently a playwright and scriptwriter, and read librarianship at Ealing Technical College, where he edited the librarianship students' magazine "Stamp Out". His first book, "Frederick III", appeared in 1981, and since then he has published several historical biographies, as well  as books on local history, true crime, rock music, fiction and drama. He is also a contributor to the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" and "Guinness Rockopaedia", and has produced articles on historical, musical and art subjects in national and local journals, including "Illustrated London News", "Royalty Digest", "European Royal History Journal", "Best of British (magazine)|Best of British", "BBC History Magazine", "Record Collector", "Antique Collector", "This England", "The Independent" and "Gibbons Stamp Monthly". He has reviewed books and records for the press, written CD booklet notes, and between 1991 and 1996 edited and published the 1970s rock fanzine "Keep on  Rockin". In 2002, he was a consultant for the BBC TV documentary "The King, the Kaiser and the Tsar", first broadcast in January 2003. In 2015, "I'll Never Walk Away", a song which he co-wrote with Miles Tredinnick under his music business alias Riff Regan, and Steve Voice, appeared on Regan's solo album "Milestones". He also played harmonica on one track of "The Hell For Leather Mob", released in 2020 by Regan and Voice's band London. He lives in Devon. For some years he was an assistant in the Library and Learning Resources Centre at City  College Plymouth, formerly the College of Further Education, where he was commissioned to write a history of the college for internal circulation.