Richard Boston (29 December 1938 – 22 December 2006) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
, he was a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist. An
anarchistAnarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state ....
, toper, raconteur, marathon runner and practical joker, he described his pastimes as "soothsaying, shelling peas and embroidery" and argued that Adam and Eve were the first anarchists "God gave them only one order and they promptly broke it".
Richard Boston was born in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and brought up on a
KentishKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
farm.
Richard Boston (29 December 1938 – 22 December 2006) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
, he was a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist. An
anarchistAnarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state ....
, toper, raconteur, marathon runner and practical joker, he described his pastimes as "soothsaying, shelling peas and embroidery" and argued that Adam and Eve were the first anarchists "God gave them only one order and they promptly broke it".
Early life
Richard Boston was born in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and brought up on a
KentishKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
farm. He was educated at
Stowe SchoolStowe School is a public school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. It was founded on 11 May 1923 by JF Roxburgh, initially with 99 male pupils. It is a member of the Rugby Group and Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school is currently becoming fully co-educational...
,
Regent Street PolytechnicThe University of Westminster is a university in London, formed in 1992 as a result of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Its antecedent institution, the Royal Polytechnic Institution, dated back to 1838.- Overview :The University of Westminster's headquarters is situated on Regent Street...
and
King's College, CambridgeKing's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.Founded in 1441, the college's formal name is "The King's College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas in Cambridge". It is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the university.- History :King's was founded in 1441 by...
. During the early 1960s he taught abroad in
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
,
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
and
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1966, towards the end of his period in France he worked, as a film extra, acting as a longshot standin for
Jacques TatiJacques Tati was a noted French comedic filmmaker. He was born Jacques Tatischeff, the son of Russian father Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff and Dutch mother Marcelle Claire Van Hoof, in Le Pecq, Yvelines, and died in Paris....
in his film
PlaytimePlay Time is French director Jacques Tati's fourth major film, and generally considered to be his most daring film. It was shot in 1964 through 1967 and released in . In Play Time, Tati again plays Monsieur Hulot, a character who had appeared in some of his earlier films, including Mon Oncle and...
.
Journalism
For more than 30 years Boston contributed to a range of newspapers, magazines and broadcast programmes. Initially, staff jobs included
Peace NewsPeace News is a magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union. Hugh Brock was editor during the sixties....
,
New Society (since subsumed into the
New StatesmanThe New Statesman is a British left-wing political magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
) and
the Times Literary SupplementThe Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
(TLS), and he became known for an oddball but passionate take on the passing scene. From 1972 Boston was a freelance columnist, features and editorial writer on
The GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
.
Soon after starting he, with Michael McNay, cooked up the idea of a column about beer. Keg beers, with Red Barrel and
Double DiamondDouble diamond may refer to:* Double Diamond , 1973 release by British jazz-rock group If* Double Diamond Burton Ale, a brand of beer brewed by Tetley's Bitter* Double diamond, a music recording sales certification...
leading the field, were being pushed on the unsuspecting beer drinker with wide coverage and high advertising budgets. These bland, sterile and gassy beers provided Aunt Sallies for his regular Saturday column in the Guardian "Boston on Beer", which started shortly after the launch of the
Campaign for Real AleThe Campaign for Real Ale is an independent, voluntary, consumer organisation based in St Albans, England, whose main aims are promoting real ale and the traditional British pub...
(CAMRA). Some regular readers might have been disappointed to hear that: "Despite all the talk of real ale, I have to say that, if ever I saw Richard in the village pub, he was usually drinking something stronger." .
In 1977 he founded the
environmentalistAn environmentalist supports any goal of the environmental movement, an information-based perspective on appropriate use of technology to prevent adverse effects on the environment...
magazine
VoleVole was a British environmentalist magazine published between 1977 and 1980. The magazine was intended to have a more light-hearted tone than the other countryside and ecology magazines of the time: the founders' working title for the magazine was "The Questing Vole", from a nature column...
.
By Richard Boston
- On his candidature in the 1994 European elections: It's a big trough and I want to get my nose in it.
- On beer:
- Beer horrible stuff, mine's a pink gin. .
- Can't stand the stuff!
- On Watership Down
Watership Down is a heroic fantasy novel about a small group of rabbits, written by British author Richard Adams. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language , proverbs, poetry, and mythology...
when re-examining some well known books: the rabbits upheld the public school virtues of 'getting up early, having cold showers, and going on very long runs.
- On Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Book of Genesis of the Bible, the first man and woman created by God...
: [They] were the first anarchists, God gave them only one order and they promptly broke it.
By others
- John Falcke, the painter: Above everything, I admired his moral courage in standing by his principles in everything he did.
- Alan Rusbridger
Alan Rusbridger is the son of the late G H Rusbridger, the Director of Education of Northern Rhodesia . He has been editor of The Guardian since 1995. Previously he was a reporter, columnist, features editor and the deputy editor of The Guardian...
, journalist: Richard Boston was incapable of being serious about anything for very long. His love of literary practical jokes and puns concealed both an acute and erudite mind and a personality given to prolonged periods of melancholy.
- Anne Boston: He was a free thinker, a true independent who tenaciously tracked his train of thought into unexpected territory, sometimes surprising himself as much as others.