People in their right minds never take pride in talents.
At the tender age of 16, Michael started work at the Walsall Observer.
Victor said: “He left school at 16 the little monkey, he would not stay on!”
He trained as a journalist at the Observer where he befriended reporters Harry Porter and Roy Partridge. Roy would later be Michael's best man when he married Kathleen Hall.
Mum Mary said: “He shared a flat with his friend Roy. They used to come over every Sunday for the day and after lunch they would be sitting reading the papers and Chris would come in and say 'are you ready Roy?' and they would go out in her canoe called Mini Ha Ha on the Thames.”
Michael, as the repulsive older brother, was not allowed to join in. But he didn't care because he had his own rowing boat which he used to keep on the back lawn.
Roy eventually left the Wallsall Observer for Reuters news agency and Michael joined the Oxford Mail in 1966 after a stint at the Croydon Observer. Roy's early death many years later deprived Michael of one the best friends he has ever had.
Michael took a break from the wild world of journalism between 1970 and 1975 to do a degree as a mature student at Ruskin College in Oxford. “That was my pink shirt and knitted tie period,” he said.
Victor described Michael's determination to become a journalist. He said: “He wanted to be a journalist and nothing else. Later on he decided university was a good thing to do. He got a degree - then went back to being a journalist!”
In 1973, Michael helped his good friend Heinz Edgar Kiewe write Civilisation on Loan, “a collector's item bursting with cool facts and provocative assertions” - not dissimilar to this chequered history.
Heinz, who once signed a letter to Michael “Heinz for 57 varieties”, had a shop called Art Needlework Industries in Ship Street, Oxford. He asked Michael to help him write his book because he wanted to make sure it was put in “proper” English (none of his Cockney slang there then).
In the Acknowledgments, Heinz gave “genuine thanks” to Michael - who is first on a long list - for co-ordinating and developing the book's style.
Heinz said: “Without his writing, the thousands of items collected could not have been explored and sieved. Without him, the diffusion of some Eastern ideas could not have been woven together into one picture of one world.”
The foreword to the book reveals the inner workings of Michael Biddulph, in his own words. In it, he called himself a “sentimental skeptic” who has a “dogged Midlands persistence”.
He also talked about his youth, when two ten-year-olds noticed him sketching boats in St Ives harbour and told him he should be an artist.
He mentioned being a journalist for ten years, during which time he described himself as “an illusionist mediating between the public and events making slick separations and simplifications where none can exist”.
Talking about why he helped Heinz write his book, Michael said: “Selective perception is essential and natural; without it, the world would be an unbearable, overwhelming, disordered place. Being selective makes the world manageable by seeing it in terms of ourselves. In perception we thin everything out, like universal gardeners. Often we should be contemplating the growth instead. That is why I have been involved with this book.”
Tom Hall, Kathleen's father, said the book was a major achievement for Michael.
He said: “It was a wonderful book. I lent it to a bloke in Wolverhampton and I never saw it again, the bastard he never gave it back! He was a director of Bass - he ought to have known better.
“It was really good. I was very proud to have a copy.”
In the early 1980s, Michael joined the Oxford Star as a reporter after working for seven years as a features sub-editor on the Oxford Mail. In only a year he was promoted to deputy editor and later became acting editor for a time which he called his “trying to be an editor phase”.
On April Fool's day in 1982, Michael was involved with a spoof story which was on the front page of the Oxford Star.
The “Will the Royal couple move to village near Kidlington?” story claimed that big-eared Prince Charles and his then wife Lady Di were to up sticks from the luxuries of London to move to Bradfield Hall, near Kidlington. Oh what a joker.
One of the many things Michael was asked to do while working for the Oxford Mail is to pose as the Mad Hatter to remind people to put the clocks back. His uncanny resemblance to the Alice in Wonderland character will haunt readers for years to come. (He has trimmed his eyebrows since then).
While at the Mail, Michael befriended Jim McClure, the former editor.
Jim said: “I have known him since he first started work on the paper. We have been friends for all that time. He was always friends with the kids as well, they used to call him Mikey. He is still Mikey. It is something of a compliment to him that I can only think of nice things to say about him.”
In 1985, aged 39, Michael was the runner-up out of more than 60 journalists in the first ever “free newspaper journalist of the year” award. Entrants had to submit three examples of their work published during 1982. Interestingly, Michael chose two exclusive stories about Oxfordshire County council and a feature on the effects of the cuts in education spending. Little did he know but it would later become his job to try and conceal (or control) such “exclusives” from the prying media. Guests at the award ceremony included a horse that featured in a story.
He left the Star in 1985 and worked as production editor of magazines at a publishing company in Chipping Norton.
In 1987, aged 43, Michael was appointed public relations officer at a new unit at Oxfordshire County council.
Michael set up his own consultancy in 2003, Rowboat Communications, at last fulfilling a long-standing dream to be his own boss. He promises (come on, then!) to begin writing again, perhaps sharing his crackling wit and intelligence with the world via a national newspaper or magazine.
In his spare time, Michael teaches social-science to Open University students, a job he has enjoyed for many years.
