Richard Ingrams | |
---|---|
Born | |
Education | University College, Oxford (BA) |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, author, satirist |
Spouse | Sara Soudain (m. 2011) |
Children | 3 |
Richard Reid Ingrams (born 19 August 1937) [1] is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye , and founding editor of The Oldie magazine. He left the latter job at the end of May 2014. [2]
Ingrams's parents, who had three other sons including the banker and opera impresario Leonard Ingrams, [3] were Leonard St Clair Ingrams (1900–1953) [4] an investment banker from a clergy family who worked as a government official in propaganda, economic warfare and the secret services during World War II, [5] [6] and Victoria, the daughter of Sir James Reid, private physician to Queen Victoria. Through his maternal grandmother and her ties to the Baring family, Ingrams is a direct descendant of the 19th-century prime minister Charles Grey. [7]
Ingrams was educated at the independent preparatory school West Downs in Winchester, Hampshire, followed by Shrewsbury School, where he met Willie Rushton and edited the school magazine. Before attending Oxford, he did his National Service in the army ranks after failing his interview for officer training, something which was unusual for someone from his background at the time. At University College, Oxford, where he read Classics, he shared tutorials with Robin Butler, later cabinet secretary and sometimes referred to as a "pillar of the Establishment". Ingrams also met Paul Foot, another former Shrewsbury pupil, not yet the left-wing radical he became, who became a lifelong friend and whose biography Ingrams wrote after Foot's death.[ citation needed ]
Along with several other Old Salopians, including Willie Rushton, Ingrams founded Private Eye in 1962, taking over the editorship from Christopher Booker in 1963. It was a classic case, he claimed on Desert Island Discs in 2008, of the "old boy network". Private Eye was part of the satire boom of the early 1960s, which included the television show That Was The Week That Was , for which Ingrams wrote, and The Establishment nightclub, run by Peter Cook. When Private Eye ran into financial problems Cook was able to gain a majority shareholding on the proceeds of his brief but financially successful venture.
Ingrams vacated the editor's chair at the Eye in 1986, when Ian Hislop took over. In 1992 Ingrams created and became editor of The Oldie , a now monthly humorous lifestyle and issues magazine mainly aimed at the older generation. As of 2005 he was still chairman of Private Eye, working there every Monday, [8] spending four days a week in London. [9]
He was television critic for The Spectator from 1976 to 1984, though he rarely showed much enthusiasm for the medium. He was a regular on the radio panel quiz The News Quiz for its first twenty years and contributed a column to The Observer for eighteen years. [8] In late 2005 he moved to The Independent , considering The Observer to have gone downhill, particularly as a consequence of its support for the Iraq war. [8] In his 27 August 2011 column, he announced that he had been sacked by the newly appointed editor of The Independent. Shortly after the death of Jimmy Savile, Ingrams' The Oldie was the first publication to break the story of Savile's history of child abuse, after several national newspapers had been unwilling to print it. [10]
After a series of clashes with James Pembroke, owner and publisher of The Oldie, Ingrams left the magazine at the end of May 2014 having resigned as editor. [2] His most recent book[ when? ] is a biography of Ludovic Kennedy.
Ingrams married Mary Morgan on 24 November 1962; [11] they had three children: a son, Fred, who is an artist; a second son, Arthur, who was disabled and died in childhood; and a daughter, Margaret ("Jubby") a mother of three who died in 2004, aged 39, of a heroin overdose in Brighton. [12]
Ingrams played the organ for many years in his local Anglican church in Aldworth, Berkshire, each Sunday. [13] The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust was formed under the patronage of Ingrams and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. In 2011 he announced he had converted to Roman Catholicism. [3]
Ingrams currently lives in Berkshire with his wife (who is also his god-daughter) Sara, a medical researcher. [14] Before they married in 2011 he had a "long-term partner, Debbie Bosley, a waitress-turned novelist 27 years his junior". [15]
His sister-in-law (wife of his late brother Rupert, a publisher) was Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth; his nephew Caspar is the present baron.
A biography, Richard Ingrams: Lord of the Gnomes ( ISBN 0-434-77828-1) by Harry Thompson, was published in 1994. In 2020, his life was encapsulated in a satirical mock-autobiography, "Richard Ingrams Writes his Memoirs," published in The Fence. [16]
Beachcomber is a nom de plume that has been used by several journalists writing a long-running humorous column in the Daily Express. It was originated in 1917 by Major John Bernard Arbuthnot MVO as his signature on the column, titled 'By the Way'. The name Beachcomber was then passed to D. B. Wyndham Lewis in 1919 and, in turn, to J. B. Morton, who wrote the column till 1975. It was later revived by William Hartston, current author of the column.
William George Rushton was an English actor, cartoonist, comedian and satirist who co-founded the satirical magazine Private Eye.
Paul Mackintosh Foot was a British investigative journalist, political campaigner, author, and long-time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
John Glashan was a Scottish cartoonist, illustrator and playwright. He was the creator of the "Genius" cartoons.
Christopher John Penrice Booker was an English journalist and author. He was a founder and first editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye in 1961. From 1990 onward he was a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. In 2009, he published The Real Global Warming Disaster. He also disputed the link between passive smoking and cancer, and the dangers posed by asbestos. In his Sunday Telegraph section he frequently commented on the UK Family Courts and Social Services.
Harry William Thompson was an English radio and television producer, comedy writer, novelist and biographer. He was the creator of the dark humour television series Monkey Dust, screened between 2003 and 2005.
Alexander Surtees Chancellor, CBE was a British journalist and editor, best known for his time as the editor of The Spectator from 1975 to 1984.
Michael John Heath is a British strip cartoonist and illustrator. He has been cartoon editor of The Spectator since 1991.
Barry McKenzie is a fictional character created in 1964 by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries, suggested by Peter Cook, for a comic strip, written by Humphries and drawn by New Zealand artist Nicholas Garland in the British satirical magazine Private Eye. He was subsequently featured in theatre and in two films in the 1970s, and portrayed by Australian singer Barry Crocker.
Nicolas Clerihew Bentley was a British writer and illustrator, best known for his humorous cartoon drawings in books and magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. The son of Edmund Clerihew Bentley, he was given the name Nicholas, but opted to change the spelling.
The Oldie is a British monthly magazine written for older people "as a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity", according to its website. The magazine was launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who was its editor for 22 years, following 23 years in the same post at Private Eye.
The "Dear Bill" letters were a regular feature in the British satirical magazine Private Eye, purporting to be the private correspondence of Denis Thatcher, husband of the then-Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. It was written by Richard Ingrams and John Wells, and illustrated with sketches by George Adamson for the first five years, and subsequently by Brian Bagnall.
Candida Rose Lycett Green was a British author who wrote sixteen books including English Cottages, Goodbye London, The Perfect English House, Over the Hills and Far Away and The Dangerous Edge of Things. Her television documentaries included The Englishwoman and the Horse, and The Front Garden. Unwrecked England, based on a regular column of the same name she wrote for The Oldie from 1992, was published in 2009.
Private Eye, the fortnightly British satirical magazine, has published various books and other material separately from the magazine since 1962.
Private Eye TV was an unsuccessful attempt to turn the satirical magazine Private Eye into a television programme.
George Worsley Adamson was a book illustrator, writer, and cartoonist, who held American and British dual citizenship from 1931.
Prime Minister parodies are a long-running feature of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, which have been included in the majority of issues since the magazine's inception. The parodies consist of one arch satirical personification of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of the day, and use that personification to send up continuously that Prime Minister's personality and style of leadership, and the personalities and general features of his or her cabinet. Such are their popularity that the parodies usually find their way into mainstream culture far beyond simply being viewed as a joke within the pages of Private Eye, and are subsequently mentioned often in other journalistic appraisals of the individual in question.
Private Eye is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised for its prominent criticism and lampooning of public figures. It is also known for its in-depth investigative journalism into under-reported scandals and cover-ups.
Patrick Marnham is an English writer, journalist and biographer. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Literature in 1988. He is primarily known for his travel writing and for his biographies, where he has covered subjects as diverse as Diego Rivera, Georges Simenon, Jean Moulin and Mary Wesley. His most recent book, published in September 2020, is War in the Shadows: Resistance, Deception and Betrayal in Occupied France, an investigation into the betrayal of a British resistance network in the summer of 1943.
Miles Goslett is a journalist. He has worked for the Evening Standard, the Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday. He was the U.K. editor for Heat Street.