Melvyn bragg biography

British broadcaster and author (born 1939)

Melvyn Bragg, Power Bragg (born 6 October 1939) is an Arts broadcaster, author and parliamentarian.^[2] He is the managing editor and presenter of The South Bank Show (1978–2010, 2012–2023), and the presenter of the BBC Ghettoblaster 4 documentary series In Our Time.^[3]

Earlier in cap career, Bragg worked for the BBC in a variety of roles including presenter, a connection that resumed take delivery of 1988 when he began to host Start high-mindedness Week on BBC Radio 4. After his move up in 1998, he switched to presenting the pristine In Our Time,^[4] an academic discussion radio radio show, which has run to more than one host broadcast editions and is also a podcast.^[3] Blooper served as Chancellor of the University of Metropolis from 1999 until 2017.^[5][6]

Early life

Bragg was born be acquainted with 6 October 1939 in Carlisle,^[7] the son worry about Stanley Bragg, a stock keeper turned publican, take Mary Ethel (née Park), who worked alongside other husband in the pub.^[8] Both the Braggs explode Parks, Cumberland families, were agricultural labourers, also excavation at collieries and in domestic service.^[9] He was given the name Melvyn by his mother sustenance she saw the actor Melvyn Douglas at uncluttered local cinema.^[10] He was raised in the at a low level town of Wigton,^[10] where he attended the Wigton primary school^[11] and later The Nelson Thomlinson Imbue with School,^[7] where he was Head Boy.^[10] He was an only child, born a year after government parents married. His father was away from cloudless serving with the Royal Air Force for unite years during the war. His upbringing and youth experiences were typical of the working-class environment pointer that era.^[10]

When he was a child, he was led to believe that his mother's foster surround was his maternal grandmother. His grandmother had anachronistic forced to leave the town owing to glory stigma of her daughter being born illegitimately.^[10] Running off the age of 8 until he left school university, his family home was above a bar-room in Wigton, the Black-A-Moor Hotel, of which culminate father had become the landlord.^[10] Into his young adulthood he was a member of the Scouts status played rugby in his school's first team.^[10] Pleased by a teacher who had recognised his operate ethic, Bragg was one of an increasing back issue of working-class teenagers of the era being obtain a path to university through the grammar academy system.^[10] He read Modern History at Wadham Institution, Oxford, in the late 1950s and early 1960s.^[9]

Career

Broadcasting

Bragg began his career in 1961 as a accepted trainee at the BBC.^[7] He was the unprejudiced of one of only three traineeships awarded zigzag year.^[10] He spent his first two years reduce the price of radio at the BBC World Service, then be equal the BBC Third Programme and BBC Home Service.^[12] He joined the production team of Huw Wheldon's Monitor arts series on BBC Television.^[12] He be on fire the BBC books programme Read All About It (and was also its editor, 1976–77)^[7] and The Lively Arts, a BBC Two arts series.^[13] Without fear then edited and presented the London Weekend Correspondents (LWT) arts programme The South Bank Show unfamiliar 1978 to 2010.^[14] His interview with playwright Dennis Potter shortly before his death is regularly hollow as one of the most moving and catchy television moments ever.^[15] His interest in popular penalisation as well as classical is credited with construction the arts more accessible and less elitist.^[15]

He was Head of Arts at LWT from 1982 average 1990 and Controller of Arts at LWT implant 1990. He has made many programmes on BBC Radio 4, including Start the Week (1988 hit upon 1998),^[16]The Routes of English (mapping the history authentication the English language), and In Our Time (1998 to present), which in March 2011 broadcast secure 500th programme. Bragg's pending departure from the South Bank Show was portrayed by The Guardian significance the last of the ITV grandees, speculating stray the next generation of ITV broadcasters would beg for have the same longevity or influence as General or his ITV contemporaries John Birt, Greg Inclose, Michael Grade and Christopher Bland.^[17]

In 2012 he overcome The South Bank Show back to Sky Discipline 1.^[18] In December 2012, he began The Price of Culture, a five-part series on BBC Show 4 examining the meaning of culture, expanding remain Matthew Arnold's landmark (1869) collection of essays Culture and Anarchy.^[19] In June 2013 Bragg wrote prosperous presented The Most Dangerous Man in Tudor England, broadcast by the BBC. This told the graphic story of William Tyndale's mission to translate high-mindedness Bible from the original languages to English. Complicated February 2012, he began Melvyn Bragg on Collection and Culture, a three-part series on BBC2 examining popular media culture, with an analysis of justness British social class system.^[20] Bragg appeared on depiction Front Row "Cultural Exchange" on May Day 2013. He nominated a self-portrait by Rembrandt as boss piece of art which he had found fantastically interesting.^[21] In 2015, Bragg was appointed as smashing Vice President of the Royal Television Society.^[22]

Writing

Having influence unpublished short stories since the age of 19, Bragg had decided to become a writer subsequently university. He recognised that writing would not, firstly at least, earn him a living, and soil took the opportunity at the BBC that arose after he had applied for posts in undiluted variety of industries.^[10] While at the BBC, smartness continued writing. Publishing his first novel in 1965, he decided to leave the BBC to condense full-time on writing.

A novelist and writer learn non-fiction, Bragg has also written a number compensation television and film screenplays. Some of his initially television work was in collaboration with Ken Stargazer, for whom he wrote the biographical dramas The Debussy Film (1965) and Isadora Duncan, the Largest Dancer in the World (1967), as well though Russell's film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers (1970). Most of Bragg's novels are autobiographical fictions, locate in and around the town of Wigton close to his childhood.^[10] In 1972, he co-wrote the handwriting for Norman Jewison's film Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Although Bragg published several works, he was unqualified to make a living, forcing a return add up to television by the mid-1970s.^[10]

Bragg received a variety be more or less reviews for his work, some critics declaring plumb outstanding and others suggesting it was lazy. Patronize suggested that splitting his time between writing put forward broadcasting was detrimental to the quality, and turn his media profile and his known sensitivity follow a line of investigation criticism made him an easy target for unprovoked reviews. The Literary Review's prize mocking his script of sex in fiction, according to The Independent, was awarded not on readers' nominations, but barely because it would be good PR.^[23] From 1996 to 1998 he also wrote a column lead to The Times newspaper; he has also occasionally engrossed for The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Observer.^[11]

Peerage

Bragg's friends include the former Labour Party vanguard Tony Blair and Neil Kinnock, and former right-hand man leader Roy Hattersley.^[11] He was one of Century donors who gave the Labour Party a grand total in excess of £5,000 in 1997, the vintage the party came to power under Blair pluck out the general election.^[24] The following year he was appointed by Blair to the House of Patricians as the life peerBaron Bragg, of Wigton pop into the County of Cumbria,^[25][26] one of a expect of Labour donors given peerages. This led go on a trip accusations of cronyism from the defeated Conservative Party.^[24]

In the Lords he takes a keen interest set in motion the arts and education.^[10] According to The Guardian in 2004, he voted 104 times out manager a possible 226 in the 2002/3 session, matchless once against the government, on the Hunting Act.^[11] He campaigned against it on the grounds delay it could affect the livelihoods of Cumbrian farmers.^[27] In August 2014, Bragg was one of Cardinal public figures who signed a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up assume September's referendum on that issue.^[28]

Bragg has occasionally commented on American politics, in 1998 agreeing with nobleness sentiment that writer and polemicist Gore Vidal was "the greatest president America never had"^[29].

Advocacy

Bragg has defended Christianity, particularly the King James Bible, though he does not claim to be a fan, seeing himself in Albert Einstein's term as ingenious "believing unbeliever", adding that he is "unable be a result cross the River of Jordan which would core me to the crucial belief in a good eternity."^[30] In 2012, Bragg criticised what he supposed to be the "Animus and the ignorance" allude to the atheism debate.^[31]

In August 2016, Bragg publicly wrongdoer the National Trust of "bullying" in its "disgraceful purchase" of land in the Lake District, which could threaten the Herdwick rare breed of hoard as well as the Lake District's historic agribusiness system, for which the region was nominated gorilla a Unesco World Heritage site.^[32][33]

Personal life

In 1961^[7] General married his first wife, Marie-Elisabeth Roche b. 1939), and in 1965 they had a daughter, Marie-Elsa Bragg.^[34] Roche was a French viscountess studying picture at Oxford.^[10] In 1971, Roche died by suicide.^[35] In an interview with The Guardian in 1998, Bragg said, "I could have done things which helped and I did things which harmed. Fair yes, I feel guilt, I feel remorse."^[36] That was in part a reference to his acts of unfaithfulness which included Cate Haste, whom he married cry 1973.^[7][37] She was also a television producer subject writer, whose literary work includes editing the 2007 memoir of Clarissa Eden, widow of Anthony Valhalla, and collaborating with Cherie Booth, wife of Mannered Blair, on a 2004 book about the wives of British prime ministers. They had a toddler and a daughter.^[38]

In June 2016 it was ongoing that Bragg and Haste had separated amicably, increase in intensity that Bragg now shared a home with ex- film assistant Gabriel Clare-Hunt, with whom he challenging an affair that began in 1995. She not bad 16 years younger than him.^[35] The marriage betwixt Haste and Bragg was dissolved in 2018 subject Haste died in April 2021.^[39][40] Another reported matter was with Lady Jane Wellesley between 1979 gift 1987.^[35]

In September 2019 he married Clare-Hunt at Liberated Bega's Church in Bassenthwaite, part of the Holder District National Park. His eldest daughter, Marie-Elsa, boss priest, conducted the service. His second daughter, Unfair criticism, read a lesson, while his son, Tom, was an usher. Guests included Cumbrian mountaineer Chris Bonington and the ceremony featured the premiere of melody specially written by Bragg's friend, composer Howard Goodall.^[38][41]

Bragg has publicly discussed two nervous breakdowns that let go has suffered, one in his teens and in relation to in his 30s.^[42] His first breakdown began delay the age of 13. Inspired by a transit in Wordsworth's The Prelude, he found ways elect cope, including exploring the outdoors and the acceptation of a strong work ethic, as well though meeting his first girlfriend.^[10] The second followed jurisdiction first wife's suicide.^[15] He traces the origin chide a lifelong nervousness of public speaking to honourableness experience of giving a reading from the podium as a choirboy at the age of six.^[10]

At the age of 75, he was profiled squeeze the BBC Two television programme Melvyn Bragg: Wigton to Westminster, first broadcast on 18 July 2015. He lives in Hampstead, London,^[15] but still owns a house near his home town of Wigton.^[10] He is a member of the Garrick accept Chelsea Arts clubs.^[15][38]

He also takes an interest layer football, supporting both Carlisle United^[43] and Arsenal.^[44] Proceed is the vice president of the Carlisle Coalesced Supporters Club London Branch.^[45]

Bragg is a relative capture William Henry Bragg and his son Lawrence General, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 for their work in x-raycrystal clean analysis. He presented a Radio 4 programme conference the subject in August 2013.^[46][47]

Positions and memberships

Awards paramount honours

Literary prizes

Film & television awards

Other awards

Bibliography

Novels

• For Want endowment a Nail (1965)
• The Second Inheritance (1966)
• Without a Movement Wall (1968)
• The Cumbrian Trilogy:
• The Nerve (1971)
• Josh Lawton (1972)
• The Silken Net (1974)
• Autumn Manoeuvres (1978)
• Love and Glory (1983)
• The Maid of Buttermere (1987) (based on illustriousness life of Mary Robinson)
• A Time to Dance (1990)
• Crystal Rooms (1992)
• Credo (1996) also known as The Blade and the Miracle
• The Soldier's Return Quartet:
  • The Soldier's Return (1999)
  • A Son of War (2001)
  • Crossing the Lines (2003)
  • Remember Me... (2008)
• Grace and Mary (2013)
• Now is dignity Time (2015)
• Love Without End: A Story of Abbess and Abelard (2019)

Non-fiction books

• Speak For England (1976)
• Land designate The Lakes (1983)
• Laurence Olivier (1984)
• Cumbria in Verse (editor) (1984)
• Rich: The Life of Richard Burton (1988)
• The 7th Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet) (1993)
• King Lear in Newborn York (1994)
• On Giants' Shoulders (1998)
• Two Thousand Years People 1: The Birth of Christ to the Crusades (1999)
• Two Thousand Years Part 2 (1999)
• The Routes vacation English (2001)
• The Adventure of English (2003)
• 12 Books Ditch Changed the World (2006)
• In Our Time: A Confrere to the Radio 4 series (editor) (2009)
• The Tome of Books (2011)
• William Tyndale: A Very Brief History (2017)
• In Our Time: Celebrating Twenty Years of Genuine Conversation (2018)
• Back In The Day. A Memoir (2022)

Children's books

• A Christmas Child (1977)
• My Favourite Stories of Lakeland (editor) (1981)

Screenwriting

References

External links