14 Facts About Richard Ingrams

Richard Reid Ingrams was born on 19 August 1937 and is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, and founding editor of The Oldie magazine.

Richard Ingrams left the latter job at the end of May 2014.

Richard Ingrams was educated at the independent preparatory school West Downs in Winchester, Hampshire, followed by Shrewsbury School, where he met Willie Rushton and edited the school magazine.

Richard Ingrams met Paul Foot, another former Shrewsbury pupil, not yet the left-wing radical he became, who became a lifelong friend and whose biography Richard Ingrams wrote after Foot's death.

Private Eye was part of the satire boom of the early 1960s, which included the television show That Was The Week That Was, for which Richard Ingrams wrote, and The Establishment nightclub, run by Peter Cook.

Richard Ingrams vacated the editor's chair at the Eye in 1986, when Ian Hislop took over.

In 1992 Richard Ingrams created and became editor of The Oldie, a now monthly humorous lifestyle and issues magazine mainly aimed at the older generation.

Richard Ingrams was television critic for The Spectator from 1976 to 1984, though he rarely showed much enthusiasm for the medium.

Richard Ingrams was a regular on the radio panel quiz The News Quiz for its first twenty years and contributed a column to The Observer for eighteen years.

Richard Ingrams's most recent book is a biography of Ludovic Kennedy.

Richard Ingrams married Mary Morgan on 24 November 1962; they had three children: a son, Fred, who is an artist; a second son, Arthur, who was disabled and died in childhood; and a daughter, Margaret a mother of three who died in 2004, aged 39, of a heroin overdose in Brighton.

Richard Ingrams played the organ for many years in his local Anglican church in Aldworth, Berkshire, each Sunday.

Richard Ingrams's sister-in-law was Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth; his nephew Caspar is the present baron.

In 2020, his life was encapsulated in a satirical mock-autobiography, "Richard Ingrams Writes his Memoirs," published in The Fence.