 |
SIR BERNARD INGHAM |
| The son of cotton weavers, Bernard Ingham was born in Halifax on 21st June 1932. He was brought up & educated in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. He attended Hebden Bridge Grammar School & stayed on in the sixth form, with the intention of becoming a geography teacher. The local newspaper, the Hebden Bridge Times, then advertised for a Junior Reporter. Sir Bernard applied, got the job & began work in October 1948. Whilst working, he continued his education at Todmorden, Halifax & Bradford Technical Colleges. Sir Bernard edited the Hebden Bridge Times in all bar name at the age of 19, before joining the Halifax office of the Yorkshire Evening Post & the Yorkshire Post in 1952. He covered Halifax Rugby League Club & International & Test matches for 10 years. |
| Sir Bernard remained in Halifax until 1959 when he joined the head office staff of the Yorkshire Post in Leeds. He was appointed Northern Industrial Correspondent in 1961. In 1962, he joined the Leeds office of The Guardian, covering the North East of England from the Wash to the Scottish Border & sometimes beyond into Scotland. |
| Three days after failing by a wide margin, as a Labour candidate to secure election to Leeds City Council, he was transferred by The Guardian to its Labour staff in London. He then covered the trade unions & the Labour Party for two years before entering the Civil Service in 1967 on a short term contract, as Press & PR Adviser to the National Board for Prices & Incomes. Sir Bernard did not return to journalism, as he intended, when his contract was completed; he stayed with the Civil Service until his retirement in 1990. He has now returned to writing & has a weekly column in the Daily Express & also writes occasionally on media issues for The Times. |
| In 1968, Sir Bernard was recruited as Mrs Barbara Castle's speech-writer at the Department of Employment & Productivity. Until 1978 he served successively as Director of Information in the Departments of Employment & Energy under (in the Department of Employment) Robert Carr & Maurice McMillan & (in the Department of Energy) Lord Carrington, Eric Varley & Tony Benn. In 1978, he was promoted to the rank of Under Secretary to head a new energy conservation division in the Department of Energy. He held that post until October 1979 when the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, recruited him as her Chief Press Secretary. He served in that capacity until Mrs Thatcher's resignation in November 1991. |
| Sir Bernard was knighted in Mrs Thatcher's resignation honours & then wrote a 140,000 word auto-biography, Kill the Messenger in three months. The book was published in May 1991 & became a best-seller. It appeared in paperback in November 1991. |
| Sir Bernard has his own communications company & holds consultancy appointments with British Nuclear Fuels plc & the British Nuclear Forum. He is a non-executive director of McDonalds Restaurants (UK) Ltd & Hill & Knowlton (UK) Ltd, the international public affairs company. He is also in great demand as an after dinner & conference speaker. |
| Sir Bernard is a visiting Fellow at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University where he is the Honorary Director of the Government Enterprise Communication Unit, which is studying how Government & industry communicate with each other. |
For more information on Sir Bernard Ingham, Contact Arena. Tel: 0113-239-2222 |