Vice Presidents
Biographical details of our Vice Presidents
Lord Astor of Hever DL Lady Catherwood Colin Dexter OBE Dame Evelyn Glennie DBE Professor Mark Haggard MA PhD HFRCS Edin HMFPHM FMedSci CBE The Baroness Howe of Idlicote CBE Geraldine James OBE Sir John Mactaggart Bt Esther Rantzen CBE Miriam Stoppard MD DSc FRCP DCL Eric Sykes CBE
Lord Astor of Hever DL
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Lady Catherwood
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Colin Dexter OBE
Colin Dexter was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire in 1930, winning a scholarship to Stamford School in 1941, where he studied Latin and Greek in the Classical Sixth. He did his National Service in the Royal Signals (as a high speed Morse operator!) before going up to Christ’s College, Cambridge to read Classics. From 1953 to 1966 he taught Latin and Greek in the Midlands (Leicester, Loughborough and Corby), and was appointed to the Oxford University’s Schools Examination Board in 1966, where he supervised O, A, and S level exams in classics and English, until his retirement in 1988.
He had been co-author of three General Studies text-books in the 60s (published by Robert Maxwell!), with his first work of fiction, featuring the beer-drinking, crossword-solving Detective Inspector Morse, published in 1975. There followed great success for the subsequent Morse investigations, and 33 episodes were televised between 1987 and 2000 with John Thaw as Morse and Kevin Whately as Lewis.
He has been awarded many honours, including the CWA’s Gold Dagger, twice, the Silver Dagger, twice, and the coveted Cartier Diamond Dagger, for services to crime writing; an OBE for services to literature; the Freedom of the City of Oxford; and a fellowship at St Cross College, Oxford. In the crossword world he has on several occasions been the national or joint national champion during the Ximenes and Azed eras.
He lists his hobbies as reading the poets, listening to Wagner and solving crosswords.
Dame Evelyn Glennie DBE
Evelyn Glennie is an international solo percussionist, composer, teacher, motivational speaker and jewellery designer. She is the first person in musical history to have successfully created and sustained a full-time career as a solo percussionist currently giving more than 100 performances per year.
As a young child, Evelyn was musically gifted. When she was eight, for reasons never fully explained, her hearing began to deteriorate, and by the time she was 12, doctors pronounced her profoundly deaf (she cannot hear sounds at certain frequencies up to 95 decibels). She was introduced to percussion, took to it immediately, and realised that this was the direction in which her career would take her.
Evelyn has performed extensively around the world as a soloist with many of the world's most renowned conductors, orchestras and artists. Out of the 22 recordings made so far, Evelyn's first CD, Bartok's Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion won her a Grammy in 1988. In 1993 Evelyn was awarded an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for her services to music, and to date has received no less than 70 international awards.
She says "My whole career has been about pushing the boundaries and thinking ‘outside the box’. This is what Deafness Research UK is all about. Its existence is to constantly explore and execute important breakthroughs and improvements in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all forms of deafness that affects all age groups. To be associated with such an organisation is a tremendous inspiration for me. Together, we can truly make a difference."
Professor Mark Haggard MA PhD HFRCS Edin HMFPHM FMedSci CBE
Mark was Director of the Medical Research Council’s Institute of Hearing Research at the University of Nottingham for 25 years, relinquishing the post in 2001 to pursue and complete his own research work in Cambridge, where he also teaches on advanced topics in scientific method and data analysis.
He gained an MA in Psychology from Edinburgh University in 1963 and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Cambridge University in 1967. From 1966 to 1967 he was Visiting Fellow at Haskins Laboratories, New York. Between 1967 and 1971 he held the posts of University Teaching Officer and Fellow of Corpus Christi College Cambridge. He was made Professor of Psychology and Head of Department at Queen’s University, Belfast in 1971, a position he held until becoming Founder Director of the Institute of Hearing Research in 1977.
Mark has published extensively on various aspects of the psychology of hearing, speech production and perception, and the imaging of brain function. His work in recent years has mostly been on causes and consequences of, and treatments for, otitis media with effusion (glue ear), the most common cause both of hearing impairments and surgical operations in childhood. He was a trustee of Deafness Research UK from 1986 and, for several years, its Chief Scientific Adviser.
The Baroness Howe of Idlicote CBE
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Geraldine James OBE
Geraldine James became a household name 20 years ago when she played Sarah Layton in the epic TV series The Jewel in the Crown. She is known for many very different television roles including the young profoundly deaf woman, Sandra in Franc Roddams film, Dummy, for which she was nominated for her first of four BAFTA Awards and won the TV Critics Award. Other TV roles include Barbara Kirk in the History Man, the redoubtable Lady Maud in Blott on the Landscape , Eleanor Harker in five episodes of Kavanagh QC, Gloria Green in The Sins and Rose Garrity in three series of Band of Gold. Most recently, she has been seen in Granada’s, Jane Hall, the BBC’s Ancient Rome series, and as Hilary Rees-Benson, the Home Secretary, in the BBC’s The Amazing Mrs Pritchard.
Geraldine has worked extensively in the theatre where key roles include Imogen in Cymbeline at the RNT, Grace in The Faith Healer at the Almeida Theatre, Ranyevskaya in The Cherry Orchard and Portia in The Merchant of Venice with Dustin Hoffman for which she won the New York Drama Desk Award.
Her films include Gandhi, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Tall Guy, The Luzhin Defence, She’s Been Away (Best Actress, Venice Film Festival), and Calendar Girls.
Geraldine was awarded an OBE in 2003.
Sir John Mactaggart Bt
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Esther Rantzen CBE
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Miriam Stoppard MD DSc FRCP DCL
Dr Miriam Stoppard has been at the forefront of providing health information since she began her career in writing and broadcasting in the 1970s. She is a leading authority on parenting, childcare, women’s health and other important health issues.
She has published over 50 books translated into 37 languages which have sold in excess of 25 million copies. As well as her page in the Daily Mirror, Miriam has a regular health page in Tesco Magazine and Top Santé.
She champions people’s right to “sound, honest and realistic information” and always bases her work on a solid foundation of proven scientific research, whatever the subject she is tackling.
Miriam is also well known for her television and radio appearances and currently appears as resident health expert on Matthew Wright’s popular morning show The Wright Stuff.
In 1998 she was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in recognition of her work in promoting health issues.
She says "Healthy hearing is every person’s right particularly in childhood where hearing is crucial for learning to speak. So I’m very interested in research which promises greater insight into the causes of deafness and treatments for it."
Eric Sykes CBE
Eric Sykes, comedy writer, director and performer was born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1923. After entertaining in RAF shows during World War 2, he started to write scripts for radio shows such as Variety Bandbox (1947) and Educating Archie (1950-4).
In 1948, he began writing material for TV, which was still very much in its infancy. He appeared in a number of variety shows while still writing for other acts including Peter Sellers and Stanley Unwin. In 1960, he created the first of his sitcoms, Sykes and A… with Hattie Jacques, a partnership that was to last two decades.
Towards the end of the fifties, Eric developed hearing problems, eventually becoming almost totally deaf.
Eric’s humour is always gentle and warm-hearted and he has written, directed and appeared in many other projects over the years, perhaps most famous of which was his silent film The Plank (1967), revolving entirely around the mishaps of two men carrying a plank.
Eric continues working, even though he is over 80, with recent credits including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Others starring Nicole Kidman. Eric’s autobiography, ‘If I don’t write it, nobody else will’ was published in 2005.
