Another JAM guest dies

Writer Miles Kington appeared on one JAM in 1983

News story in The Telegraph

Newspaper columnist Miles Kington dies

By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
Miles Kington, the humorous newspaper columnist and broadcaster, has died after a short illness at the age of 66.

Kington, who laid claim to inventing the term "Franglais" to describe the mangled French spoken by so many Britons, was a founder journalist on The Independent newspaper in 1986.

Though he had many strings to his bow - he was a keen jazz musician and wrote a number of stage plays and books - he remained a mainstay of The Independent, writing a comical weekly column for 22 years until his death.

After graduating from Trinity College, Oxford, he began his career at the now defunct satirical magazine Punch, eventually becoming literary editor.

In the late 1970s, he started writing Let’s Parler Franglais!, short sketches for Punch in a witty mixture of English and French.

Purporting to be a study course, they traded on the schoolboy observation that "les Français ne parlent pas le O-level français" ("the French do not speak O-level French").

They were later published as a series of bestselling books - Let’s Parler Franglais!, Let’s Parler Franglais Again, Let’s Parler Franglais One More Temps.

He was also a jazz reviewer for The Times and from 1981 to 1985 he wrote its humorous 'Moreover' column before leaving the newspaper during the Wapping strike and joining the launch of The Independent.

A lover of jazz since boyhood - he was born in Northern Ireland when his father was posted there with the army - Kington played the double bass and was for many years the bass player of the cabaret quartet Instant Sunshine, best known for its regular appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Stop The Week show.

He was also a frequent broadcaster, pursuing his wide range of passions in the programmes Three Miles High, Great Railway Journeys Of The World, Steam Days and The Burma Road.

Though his newspaper columns were jocular - ranging from gentle satires on politics and current affairs to flights of fancy about Albanian proverbs, motorway ballads and why exercise is bad for you - he also presented a series of documentaries about world leaders for BBC Radio 4.

His stage plays including Waiting For Stoppard, shown at the Bristol New Vic in 1995, and Death Of Tchaikovsky - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery in 1996.

He listed his hobbies as "mending punctures" and "falsifying personal records to mystify potential biographers".

At the height of his Franglais popularity, he introduced boules competitions to Bath, close to his home at Bradford-on-Avon.

The Independent said today that Kington’s "deeply loyal readers loved his writing more than any other in the paper".

Another news story in The Times

Jazz man, wit and writer Miles Kington dies, aged 66

Miles Kington, the jazz aficionado, wit and writer, has died at the age of 66 following a battle with pancreatic cancer, a family member said today.

Kington was the author of the much loved "Franglais" books and newspaper columns, and wrote for The Times, the satirical magazine Punch, and in recent years for The Independent.

Born in Northern Ireland, where his father was posted in the Army, Kington attended Glenalmond College in Perthshire, Scotland, before reading modern languages at Trinity College, Oxford.

He loved jazz and played the double bass and other instruments in the group Instant Sunshine from 1970. One of his first roles on a national newspaper was as a jazz reviewer for The Times in 1965.

He joined Punch in the same year - becoming famous for the series of comic "Franglais" sketches combining French and English - and was appointed the magazine’s literary editor in 1973.

The columns formed a series of books, including Let’s Parler Franglais!, Let’s Parler Franglais Again!, and Let’s Parler Franglais One More Time, between 1979 and 1982.

Kington left Punch in 1980 and for five years from 1981 wrote The Times’s humorous “Moreover” column before leaving the paper during the Wapping print union dispute.

He penned his last column at The Independent, where he wrote about everything from jazz to sport to current affairs, on Tuesday and it appeared in the newspaper yesterday.

As a celebrated broadcaster, Kington’s programmes included Three Miles High, Great Railway Journeys Of The World, Steam Days and The Burma Road.

In 1986 he presented a series of documentaries about world leaders for Radio 4.

His books included A Wolf In Frog’s Clothing (1983), Moreover And Miles And Miles (1982), Steaming Through Britain (1990), Jazz: An Anthology (1992) and Motorway Madness (1998). He also wrote stage plays, including Waiting For Stoppard, and Death Of Tchaikovsky - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery.

Kington listed his hobbies as “mending punctures” and “falsifying personal records to mystify potential biographers”, and penned a “fictional autobiography” called Someone Like Me: Tales From A Borrowed Childhood.

He died yesterday at his home in Limpley Stoke, near Bath.

Story in The Guardian

Journalist and broadcaster Kington dies

Miles Kington, columnist at the Independent for more than 20 years, died yesterday after a short illness.

Kington, 66, one of the paper's most popular journalists, died of pancreatic cancer.

His last column appeared in yesterday's Independent, in which he wrote about his passions ranging from jazz and steam trains to fictional accounts of news stories.

In addition to his print journalism, Kington was a broadcaster, playwright and author. He broke into national newspapers in 1965 as a jazz reviewer on the Times and later wrote a book on the subject.

That same year Kington joined Punch and in 1973 he became its literary editor. His humorous columns combining French and English were so popular that they became a series of books including Let's Parler Franglais!

Kington left Punch in 1980 and rejoined the Times a year later, writing its Moreover column for five years before leaving the paper during the Wapping printing dispute. He then joined the Independent in 1987, a year after it launched.

His radio programmes included a series about world leaders for BBC Radio 4, while his television work included an episode of Great Railway Journeys of the World for BBC2.

Kington's books included A Wolf in Frog's Clothing in 1983, Steaming Through Britain in 1990 and Jazz: An Anthology in 1992.

In 2005, he wrote the fictionalised autobiography Someone Like Me: Tales From a Borrowed Childhood.

And in The Independent

Miles Kington, polymath, wit and jazz aficionado, dies at 66

By James Macintyre
Thursday, 31 January 2008

Miles Kington, the polymath and Independent columnist who was an institution at the paper since its foundation 22 years ago, has died after a short illness. He was 66.

Born on 13 May 1941 in Northern Ireland where his father, William, was then posted with the army, Kington attended Trinity College – now Glenalmond College – in Perthshire before reading modern languages at Trinity College, Oxford. After graduating, Kington "plunged into freelance writing", he said later.

One of his first national print roles was as a jazz reviewer for The Times in 1965. A lifelong lover of the genre, he played the double bass and other instruments in the jazz group Instant Sunshine from 1970 onwards.

Kington joined the staff of the satirical magazine Punch in 1965 and was appointed its literary editor in 1973. While at Punch, he became famous for a series of comic sketches combining French and English and exposing the fact that "les Francais ne parlent pas le O-level Francais".

The sketches were brought together as a series of books including Let's Parler Franglais!, Let's Parler Franglais Again and Let's Parler Franglais One More Time.

Kington left Punch in 1980 and, for five years from 1981, wrote The Times's humorous "Moreover" column before leaving the paper during the Wapping print union dispute. After joining The Independent at its launch in 1986, Kington wrote a unique column on everything from jazz to sport to current affairs, offering fictional accounts including news stories and court reports.

He was also a celebrated broadcaster, pursuing his wide range of passions in the programmes Three Miles High, Great Railway Journeys Of The World, Steam Days and The Burma Road. In the 1990s, he wrote and appeared in a number of radio programmes and from 1996 presented a series of documentaries about world leaders for BBC Radio 4.

Kington wrote stage plays including Waiting For Stoppard, shown at the Bristol New Vic in 1995, and Death Of Tchaikovsky – A Sherlock Holmes Mystery in 1996.

His books included A Wolf In Frog's Clothing (1983), Moreover and Miles And Miles (1982), Steaming Through Britain (1990), Jazz: An Anthology (1992) and Motorway Madness (1998), as well as the Franglais books between 1979 and 1982. In 2005, he wrote the autobiographical Someone Like Me: Tales From A Borrowed Childhood. He listed his hobbies as "mending punctures" and "falsifying personal records to mystify potential biographers".

Kington, many of whose deeply loyal readers loved his writing more than any other in the paper, wrote his last column for yesterday's Independent.

An obituary here in the Times

Miles Kington

Miles Kington, who died on Wednesday aged 66, was a humorous columnist who achieved the remarkable feat of writing a daily column for more than quarter of a century, maintaining a consistently high standard; he was also the inventor of Franglais, a mish-mash of English and French deployed to comic effect in the pages of Punch.

Miles Beresford Kington was born on May 13 1941 (though, as he wrote in his deliberately exaggerated and fictionalised memoir of his childhood, Someone Like Me: "Of course, I only have my mother's word for that"). His family then lived in Northern Ireland, where his father was stationed with the Army, but young Miles and his older brother grew up near Wrexham. Their mother Jean was a Roman Catholic, and their father an agnostic "verging on the atheist"; Miles remained largely immune from belief.

After prep school in England, he went on to Trinity College, Glenalmond, in Perthshire. He then went up to Trinity College, Oxford, where he read Modern Languages, coming down with a Third. (He later gave evidence to the Franks Commission on Education on the uselessness of examinations as a measure of ability.)

Thereafter he "plunged into freelance writing", as he put it, adding that the next year he "took up part-time gardening while starving to death".

By 1965 he had found a billet as the jazz reviewer of The Times, by sending in speculative reviews at a moment when the arts editor had decided jazz needed wider coverage.

In 1967 he joined the staff of Punch and became its literary editor in 1973. In 1977 he produced his first book, The World of Alphonse Allais (republished in 1983 as A Wolf in Frog's Clothing), translations of the surrealist French humourist who invented a form of verse in which every word in the line rhymed. Some reviewers doubted his existence.

In 1980 Kington was offered the chance to present one of the BBC's Great Railway Journeys of the World (the result was Three Miles High, in which Kington ventured through South America from Lima to La Paz, crossing the world's highest railway - to a height of 15,000ft in the Peruvian Andes - during the course of which he stumbled across a Bolivian revolution at the wayside town of Viacha).

When he asked Alan Coren, Punch's editor, for a sabbatical, Coren answered: "No, you're not here all the time anyway… Have you thought of going freelance?"

"Looking back," Kington recalled, "I think that was a very elegant way of firing me." On his return from Peru (from where he sent a telegram declaring: "Glenfiddich here very warm. Please send ice"), he was unemployed.

He wrote to Harold Evans, who had recently become editor of The Times, proposing a humorous column. When he received no response, Kington announced that he would send in a piece every day until he got an answer. After two weeks he was hired; his daily column was called Moreover, and kept up a remarkably high standard until he left the paper five years later.

In 1987 Kington had bumped into Sebastian Faulks, then literary editor of the recently launched Independent, at a party, and, asked how he was enjoying The Times, replied that he would rather be at the Indie. Andreas Whittam Smith, its editor, rang the next day to offer him a job. His column there continued until this week.

Unsurprisingly, he sought inspiration from almost any topic, but favourite subjects emerged over time. He was particularly keen on jazz, steam trains, and on warning of the dangers of exercise.

But from 1979 he had also begun to produce his series of Franglais books, based upon his Punch column; the first was Let's Parler Franglais! They were rapidly to become a fixture in the lavatories of middle-class households. Let's Parler Franglais Again! (1980) promised: "Comme parlé par Sacha Distel, le Roi Jenkins, etc. Teach yourself dans dix minutes. C'est un walk-over."

There were also Parlez-vous Franglais? and Let's Parler Franglais One More Temps! In 1984 Franglais transferred to the small screen in a Channel 4 programme which featured Angela Rippon, Cliff Richard, Petula Clark and Kington himself.

"We have enough people speaking French like Edward Heath already without encouraging more," was the view of The Daily Telegraph, rather confirming the soundness of Kington's underlying idea.

Despite the title, The Franglais Lieutenant's Woman (1986) departed a little from the rest of the series, by tackling Franglais versions of the world's great books. Wilde, Hemingway, Verne, Mills & Boon, Beckett and Solzhenitsyn were among those given the treatment.

In 1986 Kington presented Steam Days on BBC2, during the course of which he rode on the footplate of the Flying Scotsman. His other television included The Burma Road (1989) and Fine Families (1998).

Books, including collections of columns such as Moreover and Miles and Miles (both 1982) and Moreover Too (1985), continued to appear regularly.

In Welcome to Kington (1989) he expressed his distrust of the "social smile". "There are so many kinds, especially at parties," he observed. "There's the kind that says: 'I remember your name, but I bet you don't remember mine.' There's the kind that says: 'Excuse me, I want to squeeze past you, but I don't want to talk to you.' Or 'I have a much funnier story than yours, which I will tell you as soon as you've finished'."

In 1992 he edited Jazz: an Anthology, a collection of anecdotes.

Kington was a regular voice on the radio and, from 1996, presented Double Vision with Edward Enfield who was, like him, a columnist on The Oldie. In 2004-2005 he presented a series for Radio 4 on figures as varied as General de Gaulle and Django Reinhardt.

In 1995 his play, Waiting for Stoppard, was performed at the Bristol New Vic and then the Southwark Playhouse. It involved a producer and a journalist going to visit the great playwright, a scenario which at first worried Stoppard's agent, who demanded a look at the script. Stoppard himself sent a message saying: "Be as rude about me as you like."

He also wrote stage shows for the Edinburgh Festival and, in 1996, Death of Tchaikovsky - a Sherlock Holmes Mystery.

Kington joined the cabaret group Instant Sunshine in 1972, playing the double bass. They specialised in such numbers as I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor and a routine in which they recreated the effect of Harry Lauder being played on a wind-up gramophone. He left the group in 1998.

Besides being keen on jazz and trains, he was an enthusiastic cyclist. He could not abide trifle.

Recently Kington had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, but he continued to work to the end. He filed his final column for Wednesday's edition of The Independent.

He married first, in 1964, Sarah Paine, with whom he had a son and a daughter. The marriage was dissolved in 1987 and that year he married secondly (Hilary) Caroline Maynard, with whom he had a son.

A tribute from his editor here in the Guardian

Kelner pays tribute to 'colossus' Kington

Newspaper columnist, broadcaster and writer Miles Kington was a "colossus of colloquy", Simon Kelner, editor in chief of the Independent newspapers said today.

Paying tribute to Kington, who died of pancreatic cancer yesterday after a 43-year career on national newspapers that included the Times and Punch, Kelner said no modern journalist could match his quality or output.

Kington, 66, died yesterday at his home in Limpley Stoke, near Bath. He had a remarkable 21-year unbroken run as an Independent columnist, writing for the paper from a year after its launch.

"Miles Kington is not only irreplaceable, but unreplaceable," Kelner added

"Every single day over more than two decades, his column - witty, topical, erudite, acutely observed - has been a fixture in the Independent," he said.

"Quite simply, no one in modern journalism is capable of such an output at such high quality.

"He was loved by readers and adored by colleagues, who were awestruck by his talent, lack of pomposity, his modesty and his desire to be as unobtrusive as possible."

In addition to his print journalism, Kington was a broadcaster, playwright and author. He broke into national newspapers in 1965 as a jazz reviewer on the Times and later wrote a book on the subject.

In the same year Kington joined Punch and in 1973 became its literary editor. His humorous columns combining French and English were so popular that they became a series of books including Let's Parler Franglais!.

Kington left Punch in 1980 and rejoined the Times a year later, writing its Moreover column for five years before leaving the paper during the Wapping printing dispute. He then joined the Independent in 1987, a year after it launched.

He penned a series of stage plays and books, including the "fictional autobiography" Someone Like Me: Tales from a Borrowed Childhood.

Born in Northern Ireland, where his father was posted in the army, Kington attended Glenalmond College in Perthshire, Scotland, before reading modern languages at Trinity College, Oxford.

He loved jazz and played the double bass and other instruments in the group Instant Sunshine from 1970 onwards.

As a broadcaster, Kington's programmes included Three Miles High, Great Railway Journeys Of The World, Steam Days and The Burma Road.

In 1986 he presented a series of documentaries about world leaders for Radio 4.

Kington's stage plays included Waiting For Stoppard, and Death of Tchaikovsky - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery.

His books included A Wolf in Frog's Clothing, Moreover, Steaming Through Britain, Jazz: An Anthology, Motorway Madness and and Miles and Miles.

Kington listed his hobbies as "mending punctures" and "falsifying personal records to mystify potential biographers".