Hugo Vickers

Hugo Vickers
Born	Hugo Ralph Vickers (1951-11-12) 12 November 1951 (age 73) Lambeth, London, England
Education	Eton College
Alma mater	Strasbourg University
Occupation(s)	Author, broadcaster, biographer

Hugo Ralph Vickers DL (born 12 November 1951) is an English writer and broadcaster.

Early life

The son of Ralph Cecil Vickers, M.C., ^[1] a stockbroker, senior partner in the firm of Vickers, da Costa, by his marriage in 1950 to Dulcie Metcalf, ^[2] Vickers was born in Lambeth and educated at Eton in the late 1960s and then at Strasbourg University. ^[3] He has a younger sister, Imogen. His aunt was the politician Baroness Vickers. ^[4]

He is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. ^[3]

Other activities

Vickers was appointed chairman of the Jubilee Walkway Trust in October 2002, which had been founded in 1977 as a lasting memory of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, and later refurbished and updated to commemorate her Golden Jubilee. Being in this role, he welcomed Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to the Mall to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Queen's coronation in 2003, and again on 19 November 2007, when the royal couple unveiled the Diamond Wedding panoramic panel in Parliament Square. He is also the Chairman of the Outdoor Trust which puts Walkways into Commonwealth countries.

Vickers is one of the Deputy Lieutenants of Berkshire.

Personal life

In September 1995, Vickers married Elizabeth Vickers. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]} They have two sons and a daughter.

Major publications

• We Want The Queen (Debrett's Peerage, 1977)
• Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979)
• The Debrett's Book of the Royal Wedding (Debrett's, 1981)
• Cecil Beaton: the Authorized Biography (1985)
• Vivien Leigh: A Biography (Hamish Hamilton, 1988)
• Loving Garbo: The Story of Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton and Mercedes de Acosta (Penguin Random House, 1994; Pimlico, 1995)
• Royal Orders: Honours and the Honoured (Pan Macmillan, 1994, ISBN   9781852835101)
• The Kiss: The Story of an Obsession (1996)
• Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece (2000)
• Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (Hutchinson, 2005)
• Alexis: the Memoirs of the Baron de Rede (The Dovecote Press, 2005)
• Frances Campbell-Preston, The Rich Spoils of Time (The Dovecote Press, 2006, editor)
• St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle (3 (Windsor: The College of St George, 2008)
• The Royal Line of Succession (Royal Collection Enterprises Ltd, 2009)
• Behind Closed Doors: the tragic untold story of Wallis Simpson (Arrow, 2012)
• The Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace Official Souvenir Guide (Antique Collectors Club Ltd, 2012)
• James Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary (2018 edition, editor)
• The Crown: Truth and Fiction: an Analysis of the Netflix Series THE CROWN (Zuleika Short Books, 2017)
• The Crown Dissected (Zuleika, 2019)
• Malice in Wonderland: My Adventures in the World of Cecil Beaton (2021)
• Elstree 175: Celebrating 175 years of Elstree School (London: Unicorn, 2023) ISBN   978-1911397380
• Clarissa: Muse to Power, The Untold Story of Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon (Hodder & Stoughton, 2024) ISBN   978-1399736770

Other publications

• Introduction to The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (London: The Folio Society, 1991)
• Introduction to The Unexpurgated Beaton by Cecil Beaton (Phoenix, 2003)
• Introduction to Beaton in the Sixties: More Unexpurgated Diaries (Phoenix, 2004)

References

1. Winston S. Churchill: The prophet of truth, Randolph Spencer Churchill, 1977, pg 322
2. "Obituary: Ralph Vickers". The Independent. 22 October 2011.
3. Musicians of the Millennium: A Biographical Guide to Members of the Worshipful Company of Musicians (London: Worshipful Company of Musicians, 2000), p. 264: "VICKERS Hugo Ralph b 12 November 1951 s of Ralph Cecil Vickers Educ Eton 1964–69. Strasbourg University , France 1970–71."
4. "Obituary: Baroness Vickers". The Independent. 17 September 2011.
5. "Hugo and Elizabeth Vickers' wedding". Tatler.com. 5 December 1995. Retrieved 14 September 2023. Many of the guests at Wyeford in Hampshire were puzzled that the author Hugo Vickers and his bride (and second cousin) Elizabeth Vickers were giving a wedding reception without a wedding. 'It's far too difficult to compete with the Crown Princes and Imrans of 1995 in marriage stakes,' they joked, and later slipped off to a pretty church in a hillside village in France for the ceremony. In the meantime, they entertained 180 of their closest friends with an Arcadian lunch in the garden, after which the guests crossed the moat to watch a medieval joust staged in the couple's honour by Hugo's American godfather, Mr William M. Weaver.
6. "Hugo Ralph VICKERS personal appointments". Find and update company information. GOV.UK. Retrieved 14 September 2023. ...Correspondence address: Wyeford, Ramsdell, Tadley, Hampshire...
7. "Mr Hugo Ralph Vickers and Miss Elizabeth A. B. Vickers" in Marriage Notices from The Times, 1982–2004, ancestry.com, accessed 8 December 2021 (subscription required)
8. Hugo Vickers, "D. Michael Vickers" in The Ampleforth Journal, Autumn 2007, pp. 95–96

External sources

• "Hugo Vickers, Esq, DL". "Debrett's". Retrieved 6 October 2013.
• "Hugo Vickers Official Site – Biography". Hugo Vickers Official Website. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
• "Hugo Vickers – Authors A-Z". Aitken Alexander Associates. Retrieved 6 October 2013.