26 Facts About Bernard Ingham

Sir Bernard Ingham was a British journalist and civil servant.

Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher's chief press secretary throughout her time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.

Bernard Ingham left school at the age of 16 to join the Hebden Bridge Times newspaper, for whom he continued to write until 2013.

Bernard Ingham attended Bradford Technical College on day release as part of the studies required to qualify for the Certificate of Training for Junior Journalists, which he described as being "taken rather seriously in early post-war Britain".

Bernard Ingham worked for the Yorkshire Evening Post, the Yorkshire Post, latterly as Northern industrial correspondent, and The Guardian.

Bernard Ingham is likely to have been the anonymous and aggressively anti-Conservative columnist "Albion" for the Leeds Weekly Citizen, a Labour Party publication, from 1964 to 1967.

Bernard Ingham's father was a Labour Party councillor for Hebden Royd Town Council, and he was himself a member of the Labour Party until he joined the Civil Service.

Bernard Ingham contested the then safe Conservative Moortown ward of Leeds City Council in the 1965 council elections for the Labour Party, having been nominated by the Fabian Society.

Bernard Ingham spent 11 years as Margaret Thatcher's chief press secretary in No 10 Downing Street when she was Prime Minister.

In those days, Downing Street briefings were "off the record", meaning that information given out by Bernard Ingham could be attributed only to "senior government sources".

Thatcher was said to be furious, and Bernard Ingham sent correspondence to The Sun asking it to explain why the honours list, given in confidence, had been published.

In 1989, three years after the Westland helicopter scandal led to the resignation of Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, former cabinet minister Leon Brittan revealed in a Channel 4 programme that Bernard Ingham was one of two senior Downing Street officials who had approved the leaking of a crucial letter from the Solicitor General Patrick Mayhew, in which he questioned some of the statements that Heseltine had made about the takeover contest of the Westland helicopter company.

Bernard Ingham attended her funeral at St Paul's Cathedral in April 2013.

Bernard Ingham helped Thatcher in the writing of the Yes Minister sketch, which she performed in public with Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne.

In December 2001, Bernard Ingham said, on the death of Hawthorne, "Margaret Thatcher's fascination was with the games between the elected politician and the unelected official".

Bernard Ingham was vice-president of Country Guardian, an anti-wind energy campaign group.

Bernard Ingham was a regular panellist on BBC current affairs programme Dateline London.

Bernard Ingham had been secretary to Supporters of Nuclear Energy, a group of individuals who seek to promote nuclear power in the United Kingdom.

Bernard Ingham was persuaded to appear in a short sequence, in which he issued a stern warning to young people about the dangers of a purported new drug, "cake", one of several celebrities who appeared not to recognise the satirical nature of the programme.

On 8 March 1999, Bernard Ingham was bound over to keep the peace at Croydon Magistrates' Court after he was accused of causing criminal damage to a Mercedes car owned by Linda Cripps, a neighbour, in Purley, south London.

Bernard Ingham denied that he had caused any damage to the vehicle.

The court was told that Cripps told Bernard Ingham: "You have damaged my car", to which he replied, "Good, I'm glad".

Hebden Bridge residents launched a campaign against Bernard Ingham to remove him as a local newspaper columnist over his continued refusal to apologise for his words in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster.

Bernard Ingham declined to apologise or respond to the previous comments he made, which led to petitions being created on change.

Bernard Ingham suggested Scottish nationalists were being "as greedy as sin", stating that "the only thing that fuelled nationalism was the smell of oil and money in oil", suggesting that any nationalist sentiments were merely a disguised form of greed.

Bernard Ingham was married to Nancy for 60 years until she died in 2017.