Brian Inglis
Encyclopedia
Brian Inglis was an Irish
journalist
, historian
and television presenter. He was born in Dublin, Ireland
, and retained an interest in Irish history and politics.
He was best known to people in Britain as the presenter of All Our Yesterdays, a television review of events exactly 25 years previously, as seen in newsreel
s, newspaper articles etc. He also presented the weekly review of newspapers known as What the Papers Say
.
He joined the staff of The Spectator
in 1954, and became editor in 1959, soon afterwards hiring the young Bernard Levin
to write for the magazine. He continued as editor until 1962.
He also had interests in the paranormal
, and alternatives
to institutionalised medicine.
Inglis' friend and colleague Bill Grundy
died on 9 February 1993. Inglis had just finished writing Grundy's obituary when he, too, died.
family (his father was an hydraulic engineer) in the closed society of Malahide
, north County Dublin
. He was a grandson of J. R. Blood and thus a likely descendant of Thomas Blood
, stealer of the Crown Jewels
. He found the life he was born into oppressive in its obsession with custom, style, privilege, respectability, and ostracism. Since the people around him were regarded as English
invaders by the local Irish Catholics, and as Irish by society over in Britain
, he felt alienated from, or was rejected by, everyone to whom he might claim a connection.
He attended the Dragon School
in Oxford
, Shrewsbury School
, Trinity College, Dublin
, and Magdalen College
, Oxford. After service in the RAF
during World War 2
, he studied for a PhD in History at Trinity College, Dublin
. His thesis was the basis for his first book, Freedom of the Press in Ireland (1954).
upper classes in Ireland, from whose cultural influence Inglis never entirely escaped). He was a founding member of the British-Irish Association, which became the British Association for Irish Studies.
In 1975 he wrote and narrated a unique sound archive of World War 2 for record label Cameo Classics, entitled "Sounds of All Our Yesterdays". It was researched by his close friend Bill Grundy, a Producer of the Granada TV series "All Our Yesterdays", which Brian had presented for 10 years.
His interest in the paranormal began while working at The Spectator. In 1978 he published Natural and Supernatural. With Arthur Koestler
he co-founded the KIB Foundation which supported research into paranormal phenomena. He published a work on people who enter trance states (Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of Mind) and his last work, written as a tribute to Koestler and the Koestler Foundation, dealt with a subject dear to his late friend's heart. It was entitled Coincidence: A Matter of Chance or Synchronicity?
He was a consultant on the 1981 Thames Television
programme Mind Over Matter.
He published his final memoir, Downstart, in 1990. The title is taken from Bernard Shaw
, and is a play on the word Upstart, as in one who pretends to a higher station in life than is merited.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
and television presenter. He was born in Dublin, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, and retained an interest in Irish history and politics.
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s, newspaper articles etc. He also presented the weekly review of newspapers known as What the Papers Say
What the Papers Say
What The Papers Say is a BBC radio programme that originally ran for many years on British television.Its first incarnation was the second longest-running programme on British television after Panorama...
.
He joined the staff of The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
in 1954, and became editor in 1959, soon afterwards hiring the young Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
to write for the magazine. He continued as editor until 1962.
He also had interests in the paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
, and alternatives
Alternative medicine
Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....
to institutionalised medicine.
Inglis' friend and colleague Bill Grundy
Bill Grundy
William "Bill" Grundy was an English television presenter and former host of Today, a regional news programme broadcast on Thames Television...
died on 9 February 1993. Inglis had just finished writing Grundy's obituary when he, too, died.
Early life and education
Brian Inglis was born into a middle-class professional Church of IrelandChurch of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
family (his father was an hydraulic engineer) in the closed society of Malahide
Malahide
Malahide is a coastal suburban town, near Dublin city, located in the administrative county of Fingal, within the traditional County Dublin, Ireland. It has a village-like centre and extensive residential areas to the south, west and northwest.-Name:...
, north County Dublin
County Dublin
County Dublin is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Dublin Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Dublin which is the capital of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first of the parts of Ireland to be shired by King John of England following the...
. He was a grandson of J. R. Blood and thus a likely descendant of Thomas Blood
Thomas Blood
Colonel Thomas Blood was an Irish colonel best known for attempting to steal the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London in 1671...
, stealer of the Crown Jewels
Crown jewels
Crown jewels are jewels or artifacts of the reigning royal family of their respective country. They belong to monarchs and are passed to the next sovereign to symbolize the right to rule. They may include crowns, sceptres, orbs, swords, rings, and other objects...
. He found the life he was born into oppressive in its obsession with custom, style, privilege, respectability, and ostracism. Since the people around him were regarded as English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
invaders by the local Irish Catholics, and as Irish by society over in Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, he felt alienated from, or was rejected by, everyone to whom he might claim a connection.
He attended the Dragon School
Dragon School
The Dragon School is a British coeducational, preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877 as the Oxford Preparatory School, or OPS. It is primarily known as a boarding school, although it also takes day pupils...
in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a co-educational independent school for pupils aged 13 to 18, founded by Royal Charter in 1552. The present campus to which the school moved in 1882 is located on the banks of the River Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England...
, Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, and Magdalen College
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
, Oxford. After service in the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
during World War 2
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he studied for a PhD in History at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
. His thesis was the basis for his first book, Freedom of the Press in Ireland (1954).
Adult life
He married Ruth Woodeson, the writer, in 1958, and they had one son, later separating. In 1962 he published his first memoir West Briton (an antiquated reference to the Anglo-IrishAnglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
upper classes in Ireland, from whose cultural influence Inglis never entirely escaped). He was a founding member of the British-Irish Association, which became the British Association for Irish Studies.
In 1975 he wrote and narrated a unique sound archive of World War 2 for record label Cameo Classics, entitled "Sounds of All Our Yesterdays". It was researched by his close friend Bill Grundy, a Producer of the Granada TV series "All Our Yesterdays", which Brian had presented for 10 years.
His interest in the paranormal began while working at The Spectator. In 1978 he published Natural and Supernatural. With Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
he co-founded the KIB Foundation which supported research into paranormal phenomena. He published a work on people who enter trance states (Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of Mind) and his last work, written as a tribute to Koestler and the Koestler Foundation, dealt with a subject dear to his late friend's heart. It was entitled Coincidence: A Matter of Chance or Synchronicity?
He was a consultant on the 1981 Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
programme Mind Over Matter.
He published his final memoir, Downstart, in 1990. The title is taken from Bernard Shaw
Bernard Shaw
Bernard Shaw may refer to:* George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright* Bernard Shaw , English footballer of the 1960-70s* Bernard Shaw , journalist and longtime CNN anchorman* Bernie Shaw, singer for the band Uriah Heep...
, and is a play on the word Upstart, as in one who pretends to a higher station in life than is merited.
Selected bibliography
- "Roger Casement" (1993) ISBN 0-14-139127-8, about the Irish diplomat and revolutionaryRoger CasementRoger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....
. - "The Opium Wars" (1976) ISBN 0-340-19390-5, concerning the eponymous conflictsOpium WarsThe Opium Wars, also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, divided into the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842 and the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860, were the climax of disputes over trade and diplomatic relations between China under the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire...
- "Downstart, the Autobiography of Brian Inglis" (1990) ISBN 0-7011-3390-2
List of works
- Freedom of the Press in Ireland [IHS] (London: Faber & Faber 1954).
- Irish Double-Thought, in The Spectator, 188 (7 March 1952), p.289;
- Smuggled Culture, The Spectator, 188 (28 November 1952), p.726;
- The Story of Ireland (London: Faber 1956);
- Moran of the Leader, in Castleknock Chronicle (1956) [text of Thomas Davis Lecture];
- Moran of the Leader and Ryan of the Irish Peasant, in The Shaping of Modern Ireland, Conor Cruise O'BrienConor Cruise O'BrienConor Cruise O'Brien often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish politician, writer, historian and academic. Although his opinion on the role of Britain in Northern Ireland changed over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, he always acknowledge values of, as he saw, the two irreconcilable traditions...
, ed., (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1960); - West Briton (London: Faber and Faber 1962)
- Fringe Medicine (London: Faber and Faber 1964)
- Roger Casement (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1973)
- Natural and Supernatural (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1978)
- The Diseases of Civilisation (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1981)
- The Hidden Power (London: J.Cape 1986)
- The Paranormal: An Encyclopedia of Psychic Phenomena (London: Paladin 1986)
- The Power Of Dreams (London: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1987)
- with Ruth West: The Unknown Guest (London: Chatto and Windus 1987)
- Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of Mind (London: Paladin 1989) ISBN 0-586-08933-0
- Coincidence: a Matter of Chance - or Synchronicity? (London: Hutchinson 1990)
- Downstart: The Autobiography of Brian Inglis (London: Chatto & Windus 1990)
Quotes
- On the Irish Famine: If the British chose not to consider Ireland part of Britain, when such an emergency arose, they could hardly complain if the Irish did likewise. (The Story of Ireland, p.140)
- To punish drug takers is like a drunk striking the bleary face it sees in the mirror. (Postscript, The Forbidden Game: A Social History of Drugs (1975))