Margaret Thatcher's former press secretary Sir Bernard Ingham dies aged 90

Harry Horton looks back on the life and career of Sir Bernard Ingham

Sir Bernard Ingham, the long-serving press secretary for Margaret Thatcher, has died aged 90 after a short illness, his family said.

He was a Fleet Street journalist with The Guardian before becoming a Government press officer, and served as Mrs Thatcher’s press secretary for all but the first few months of her premiership.

After leaving Downing Street, he wrote his memoirs, Kill The Messenger, and worked as a political pundit, an after-dinner speaker, a cruise lecturer and a newspaper columnist.

His family said “he was a journalist to his bones”, starting out aged 16 on his local paper in West Yorkshire, The Hebden Bridge Times, and he was still filing weekly columns to Express Online and The Yorkshire Post until a few days before he died.

His son John 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.”

Sir Bernard was married for 60 years to Nancy Ingham, a former policewoman, who died in 2017.

He leaves a son, two grandchildren and a great grandchild.