The Lord Bragg | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2017 | |
| Born | (1939-10-06)6 October 1939 (age 86) Carlisle,Cumberland, England |
| Alma mater | Wadham College, Oxford |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1961–present |
| Notable work | In Our Time |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 4 August 1998 Life peerage | |
| Television | The South Bank Show |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3; includingMarie-Elsa |
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg (born 6 October 1939), is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian.[2] He was the editor and presenter ofThe South Bank Show (1978–2010, 2012–2023), and the presenter of theBBC Radio 4 documentary seriesIn Our Time from 1998 to 2025.[3]
Earlier in his career, Bragg worked for the BBC in various roles including presenter, a connection that resumed in 1988 when he began to hostStart the Week onBBC Radio 4. After hisennoblement in 1998, he switched to presenting the newIn Our Time,[4] an academic discussion radio programme, which has run to more than one thousand broadcast editions and is also a podcast.[3] He served asChancellor of theUniversity of Leeds from 1999 until 2017.[5][6]
In September 2025, Bragg announced that he would step down from hostingIn Our Time.[7]
Bragg was born on 6 October 1939 inCarlisle and was raised inWigton,Cumberland,[8][9][failed verification] the son of Stanley Bragg, a stock keeper turned publican, and Mary Ethel (née Park), who worked alongside her husband in the pub.[10] Both the Braggs and Parks,Cumberland families, were agricultural labourers, also working at collieries and in domestic service.[11] He was given the name Melvyn by his mother after she saw the actorMelvyn Douglas at a local cinema.[12] He was raised in the small town ofWigton,[12] where he attended the Wigton primary school[13] and laterThe Nelson Thomlinson Grammar School,[9][failed verification] where he was Head Boy.[12] He was an only child, born a year after his parents married. His father was away from home serving with theRoyal Air Force for four years during the war. His upbringing and childhood experiences were typical of the working-class environment of that era.[12]
When he was a child, he was led to believe that his mother's foster mother was his maternal grandmother. His grandmother had been forced to leave the town owing to the stigma of her daughter being born illegitimately.[12] From the age of 8 until he left for university, his family home was above a pub in Wigton, the Black-A-Moor Hotel, of which his father had become the landlord.[12] Into his teens he was a member of theBoy Scouts and played rugby in his school's first team.[12] Encouraged by a teacher who had recognised hiswork ethic, Bragg was one of an increasing number of working-class teenagers of the era being given a path to university through the grammar school system.[12] He studiedModern History atWadham College, Oxford, in the late 1950s and early 1960s.[11]
Bragg began his career in 1961 as a general trainee at theBBC.[9][failed verification] He was the recipient of one of only three traineeships awarded that year.[12] He spent his first two years in radio at theBBC World Service, then at theBBC Third Programme andBBC Home Service.[14] He joined the production team ofHuw Wheldon'sMonitor arts series onBBC Television.[14] He presented the BBC books programmeRead All About It (and was also its editor, 1976–77)[9][failed verification] andThe Lively Arts, aBBC Two arts series.[15] He then edited and presented theLondon Weekend Television (LWT) arts programmeThe South Bank Show from 1978 to 2010.[16] His interview with playwrightDennis Potter shortly before his death is regularly cited as one of the most moving and memorable television moments ever.[17] His interest inpopular music as well asclassical is credited with making the arts more accessible and less elitist.[17]
He was Head of Arts at LWT from 1982 to 1990 and Controller of Arts at LWT from 1990. He has made many programmes onBBC Radio 4, includingStart the Week (1988 to 1998),[18]The Routes of English (mapping the history of the English language),[19] andIn Our Time (1998 to 2025), which in March 2011 broadcast its 500th programme.[20][21] Bragg's pending departure from theSouth Bank Show was portrayed byThe Guardian as the last of the ITV grandees, speculating that the next generation of ITV broadcasters would not have the same longevity or influence as Bragg or his ITV contemporariesJohn Birt,Greg Dyke,Michael Grade andChristopher Bland.[22]
In 2012 he broughtThe South Bank Show back toSky Arts 1.[23] In December 2012, he beganThe Value of Culture, a five-part series on BBC Radio 4 examining the meaning of culture, expanding onMatthew Arnold's landmark (1869) collection of essaysCulture and Anarchy.[24] In June 2013 Bragg wrote and presentedThe Most Dangerous Man in Tudor England, broadcast by theBBC. This told the dramatic story ofWilliam Tyndale's mission to translate the Bible from the original languages to English. In February 2012, he beganMelvyn Bragg on Class and Culture, a three-part series onBBC Two examining popular media culture, with an analysis of the British social class system.[25] Bragg appeared on theFront Row "Cultural Exchange" onMay Day 2013. He nominated a self-portrait byRembrandt as a piece of art which he had found especially interesting.[26] In 2015, Bragg was appointed as a Vice President of theRoyal Television Society.[27]
Having produced unpublished short stories since the age of 19, Bragg had decided to become a writer after university. He recognised that writing would not, initially at least, earn him a living, and he took the opportunity at the BBC that arose after he had applied for posts in a variety of industries.[12] While at the BBC, he continued writing. Publishing his first novel in 1965, he decided to leave the BBC to concentrate full-time on writing.
A novelist and writer of non-fiction, Bragg has also written a number of television and film screenplays. Some of his early television work was in collaboration withKen Russell, for whom he wrote the biographical dramasThe Debussy Film (1965) andIsadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), as well as Russell's film aboutTchaikovsky,The Music Lovers (1970). Most of Bragg's novels areautobiographical fictions, set in and around the town of Wigton during his childhood.[12] In 1972, he co-wrote the script forNorman Jewison's filmJesus Christ Superstar (1973). Although Bragg published several works, he was unable to make a living, forcing a return to television by the mid-1970s.[12]
Bragg received a variety of reviews for his work, some critics declaring it outstanding and others suggesting it was lazy. Many suggested that splitting his time between writing and broadcasting was detrimental to the quality, and that his media profile and his known sensitivity to criticism made him an easy target for unjust reviews.The Literary Review's prize mocking his writing of sex in fiction, according toThe Independent, was awarded not on readers' nominations, but simply because it would be good PR.[28] From 1996 to 1998 he also wrote a column inThe Times newspaper; he has also occasionally written forThe Sunday Times,The Guardian andThe Observer.[13]
Bragg's friends include the formerLabour Party leadersTony Blair andNeil Kinnock, and former deputy leaderRoy Hattersley.[13] He was one of 100 donors who gave the Labour Party a sum in excess of £5,000 in 1997, the year the party came to power under Blair inthe general election.[29] The following year he was appointed by Blair to theHouse of Lords as thelife peerBaron Bragg,of Wigton in the County of Cumbria,[30][31] one of a number of Labour donors given peerages. This led to accusations ofcronyism from the defeatedConservative Party.[29]
In the Lords he takes a keen interest in the arts and education.[12] According toThe Guardian in 2004, he voted 104 times out of a possible 226 in the 2002/3 session, only once against the government, on theHunting Act.[13] He campaigned against it on the grounds that it could affect the livelihoods of Cumbrian farmers.[32] In August 2014, Bragg was one of 200 public figures who signed a letter toThe Guardian opposingScottish independence in the run-up to September'sreferendum on that issue.[33]
Bragg has occasionally commented on American politics, in 1998 agreeing with the sentiment that writer and polemicistGore Vidal was "the greatestpresident America never had".[34]
Bragg has defended Christianity, particularly theKing James Bible, although he does not claim to be a believer, seeing himself inAlbert Einstein's term as a "believing unbeliever", adding that he is "unable to cross the River of Jordan which would lead me to the crucial belief in a godly eternity."[35] In 2012, Bragg criticised what he claimed to be the "Animus and the ignorance" of the atheism debate.[36]
In August 2016, Bragg publicly accused theNational Trust of "bullying" in its "disgraceful purchase" of land in the Lake District, which could threaten theHerdwick rare breed of sheep as well as the Lake District's historic farming system, for which the region was nominated as a Unesco World Heritage site.[37][38]
In 1961, after a short courtship, Bragg married his first wife, Marie-Elisabeth Roche (b. 1939).[39] In 1965 they had a daughter,Marie-Elsa Bragg.[40] Roche was a Frenchviscountess studying painting at Oxford.[12] In 1971, Roche died by suicide.[41] In an interview withThe Guardian in 1998, Bragg said, "I could have done things which helped and I did things which harmed. So yes, I feel guilt, I feel remorse."[42] This was in part a reference to his infidelities which includedCate Haste, whom he married in 1973.[9][43] Haste was also a television producer and writer, whose literary work includes editing the 2007 memoir ofClarissa Eden, widow ofLord Avon, and collaborating withCherie Booth, wife ofTony Blair, on a 2004 book about the wives of British prime ministers. They had a son and a daughter.[44]
In June 2016 it was reported that Bragg and Haste had separated amicably, and that Bragg now shared a home with former film assistant Gabriel Clare-Hunt, with whom he had an affair that began in 1995. She is 16 years younger than him.[41] The marriage between Haste and Bragg was dissolved in 2018 and Haste died from lung cancer in April 2021.[45][46] Another reported affair was withLady Jane Wellesley between 1979 and 1987.[41]
In September 2019 he married Clare-Hunt at St Bega's Church inBassenthwaite, part of theLake District National Park. His eldest daughter, Marie-Elsa, a priest, conducted the service. His second daughter, Alice, read a lesson, while his son, Tom, was an usher. Guests included Cumbrian mountaineerSir Chris Bonington and the ceremony featured the premiere of music specially written by Bragg's friend, composerHoward Goodall.[44][47]
Bragg has publicly discussed twonervous breakdowns that he has suffered, one in his teens and another in his 30s.[48] His first breakdown began at the age of 13. Inspired by a passage in Wordsworth'sThe Prelude, he found ways to cope, including exploring the outdoors and the adoption of a strong work ethic, as well as meeting his first girlfriend.[12] The second followed his first wife's suicide.[17] He traces the origin of a lifelong nervousness of public speaking to the experience of giving a reading from the lectern as achoirboy at the age of six.[12]
At the age of 75, he was profiled in theBBC Two television programmeMelvyn Bragg: Wigton to Westminster, first broadcast on 18 July 2015. He lives inHampstead Hill Gardens inHampstead, London,[17] but still owns a house near his home town ofWigton.[12] He is a member of theGarrick andChelsea Arts clubs.[17][44]
He also takes an interest in football, supporting bothCarlisle United[49] andArsenal.[50] He is the vice president of the Carlisle United Supporters Club London Branch.[51]
Bragg is a relative ofSir William Henry Bragg and his son,Sir Lawrence Bragg, who were awarded theNobel Prize in Physics in 1915 for their work inX-raycrystal structure analysis. He presented a Radio 4 programme on the subject in August 2013.[52][53]
Public understanding of the arts, literature and sciences. Broadcaster, presenter, interviewer, commentator, novelist, scriptwriter.
"You can't learn everything at school
...my first wife was an aristocrat. I didn't know that for a year.
Media related toMelvyn Bragg at Wikimedia Commons| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the University of Leeds 1999–2017 | Succeeded by |
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Bragg | Followed by |
