Sir Bernard Ingham
Journalist and former civil servant who was Chief Press Secretary to Margaret Thatcher throughout her time as Prime Minister, Sir Bernard Ingham, attended Bradford Technical College in the early 1950s as part of his journalism training.
“By the early 1950s, I had progressed in my postgrammar
school education through 3 technical colleges
- Todmorden, Halifax and Bradford. I attended Bradford
on day release as part of the studies required to qualify
for the Certificate of Training for Junior Journalists, a
scheme that was taken rather seriously in early post-war
Britain.
I travelled over from Halifax - where I was in The
Yorkshire Post’s district office - via Queensbury with one
or two colleagues taking the same course with young
journalists from other parts of the old West Riding.
I
took English and Constitutional Law and still have my
textbook - Wade and Phillips’ Constitutional Law - on
my shelves.
In English classes we were somewhat argumentative
because we were dealing with the art of writing and
expression. I remember sorely trying our tutor about
the News of the World. He had a very poor view of
such a newspaper which then looked much duller than
it does today but reported the more salacious court
cases exhaustively. My point was not that this was what
journalism should be about but that, whatever we might
think of its concept of news, it certainly knew how to
report matters accurately and with an air of authority. I
am not sure I impressed our tutor but I did eventually
get my Certificate.”
For 18 years Sir Bernard worked successively on the
Hebden Bridge Times, the Yorkshire Evening Post, the
Yorkshire Post and the Guardian before becoming a
temporary civil servant in 1967, intending to return to
Fleet Street after 2 years. It took him 24 years to get
back. In between he was Press Secretary in the National
Board for Prices and Incomes and, in the Departments
of Employment and Energy, to Barbara Castle, Robert
Carr and Maurice Macmillan (Employment) and Lord
Carrington, Eric Varley and Tony Benn (Energy). He
was Head of the Department of Energy’s Energy
Conservation Policy Division for 2 years until 1979.
Sir Bernard became Chief Press Secretary to Prime
Minister, Margaret Thatcher from 1979 until she
resigned in 1990. In his last 2 years with Mrs Thatcher,
he was also Head of the Government Information
Service. He was knighted on Mrs Thatcher’s resignation
and his retirement in 1990.
Since then he has been a newspaper columnist,
broadcaster, author, lecturer, consultant and
businessman. He has written 6 books: Kill the
Messenger (1991), Yorkshire Millennium (1999),
Yorkshire Villages and Yorkshire Castles (both 2001),
The Wages of Spin (2003) and Yorkshire Greats (2005).
Photograph supplied by Sir Bernard Ingham