The Journalist by Jos Scharrer
HOME ABOUT THE BOOKS EXERPTS REVIEWS SHOP CONTACT

About the Author

Jos Scharrer - nee Shaw - was born in the coastal town of East London, South Africa.

She started her writing career at the age of twenty one on the newspaper - Daily Dispatch in East London and quickly became the Feature Editor, a position she held for four years. Following her marriage to Richard Scharrer, son of the acclaimed Dutch Resistance hero – Henry Scharrer, she lived in Amsterdam for some four years before returning to South Africa. Here she became an advertising copywriter with a major agency – VZ Lund and Tredoux. Within a few years she was appointed the Executive Creative Director - the first woman to hold that position in South Africa and the first woman to be on the board of any South African advertising agency.  During that period it became the largest advertising agency in South Africa. The agency joined forces with Ogilvy Mather of London and is today Ogilvy South Africa.

Later Jos was offered a new challenge by fast growing creative agency, BBDO South Africa, joined them and again became Executive Creative Director responsible for a large creative staff. Here she won dozens of international advertising awards including New York Advertising Festival awards, a Hollywood Award, many Loeries with two Loerie Grand Prix awards and a Cannes Advertising Festival Award.

In 1984 Jos founded her own advertising agency – Scharrer Advertising. This agency grew to billing some R23 million and also won many awards including the New York Advertising Festival Grand Prix for Best Radio Campaign. It became the 28th largest agency in South Africa, and one of the largest of the independent agencies. Scharrer Advertising still operates today, though on a smaller scale to give Jos more time for writing books and stories.

The Journalist is a biography based story about Jos’ great-aunt Flora Shaw, who was the inspiration for her writing career. Jos wrote this book to add to the other biographies written about Flora and to give an insight into Flora’s life and character that has never before been told. The Dutch Resistance Revealed is based on the daring exploits of Jos’ late father-in-law, Henri Scharrer, who was executed by the Nazis on 6th September 1944 at Vught Concentration Camp together with over 300 other Dutch Resistance fighters.

Jos has three children and six grand children.

The Dutch Resistance Revealed

The Journalist