Sir Bernard Ingham, the “formidable” former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher has died, aged 90.
He suffered a short illness and died surrounded by his family this lunchtime.
In a statement this afternoon, his son, John Ingham said:
“To the wider world he is known as Margaret Thatcher’s chief press secretary, a formidable operator in the political and Whitehall jungles.
“But to me he was my dad – and a great dad at that. He was a fellow football fan and an adoring grandfather and great-grandfather. My family will miss him greatly.”
He was born in Halifax in 1932 and left Hebden Bridge Grammar School at 16 to join the Hebden Bridge Times as a journalist. He would later move to the Yorkshire Post.
Initially anti-Conservative, he wrote articles for local Labour Party newspapers, criticising Ted Heath and Alec Douglas-Home. It was a politics that ran through his family – his father ran a local weaving union and became Hebden Bridge’s first socialist councillor.
He left Yorkshire in 1965 to become The Guardian’s Industrial Correspondent, from the Guardian he moved to the civil service as a press officer and started working with Barbara Castle and later Tony Benn.
When the Conservatives came to power in 1979, he became the Chief Press Secretary to Margaret Thatcher. It’s said that he didn’t necessarily see Lady Thatcher as a Conservative, so much as a “radical.”
However, the new position would see the former left-wing journalist take on the unions.
He remained alongside Lady Thatcher until she was succeeded by Sir John Major. He then he retired.
Sir Bernard Ingham was married for 60 years to Nancy Ingham, a former police officer. She died in 2017.
He leaves a son, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
