Vanessa Collingridge

Vanessa Jane Collingridge[1] (born 12 January 1968)[2][3] is a British author and broadcaster.

Early life and education

Youngest of the five children of Gordon Ernest Collingridge (1926-2007)[4] and his wife Irene (born Irene Keeping), Collingridge was born and brought up in Woking, Surrey in England. She read Geography at Hertford College, Oxford, where she earned a first class MA in 1990,[5] despite contracting viral encephalitis in her second year which caused an almost fatal swelling of her brain.[6] It was also at Oxford that she met her husband Allan Watt.[7]

Career

After graduating, Collingridge moved immediately to a career in television, first as a question checker on game shows Wheel of Fortune and Win, Lose or Draw, and then for 14 months as a weathergirl on BBC Scotland.[6] In the early to mid-1990s she appeared from time to time on BBC television's Gardeners' World. She has since worked as a producer and presenter on all five British national terrestrial television channels, as well as BBC national radio.[5]

In 2000 she quit her job as a television presenter on Tonight with Trevor McDonald to author two biographies, one of 18th-century explorer James Cook and one of Celtic warrior queen Boudica.[7] During her research for the former, she discovered she shared ancestry with controversial Australian writer and illustrator George Collingridge, who asserted in 1895 that Australia was discovered by the Portuguese.[7][8][9]

She has described her very early interest in feminism in the introduction to her book on Boudica in 2005: "What started as a strong-willed desire for independence became a fully-fledged, bra-burning (if only I had been old enough to wear one) mentality... Certainly, I cannot remember a time when I wasn't acutely aware of the inherently political nature of woman's position in society and — much to my father's disgust and my now extreme embarrassment — by the grand old age of twelve, I would proudly read Cosmopolitan magazine and proclaim myself a feminist!"[10]

She returned to television in 2007 as writer and narrator of the four-part miniseries Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery.[11]

Family life

Collingridge has lived in Scotland since 1989, and resides in a converted farmhouse on the shore of Castle Semple Loch near Lochwinnoch with her husband Alan Watt, and sons Archie, Angus and Finn.[6][7][12] In 2017 she completed her PhD in historical cartography at the University of Glasgow, having worked as a broadcaster for BBC Radio Scotland's Buried Treasure and BBC Radio 4's Making History whilst studying.[1][5][6][13]

Bibliography

  • Cook: Obsession and Betrayal in the New World (2002), Ebury Press, ISBN 0-09-187913-2
  • Boudica (2005), Ebury Press, ISBN 0-09-189819-6

References

  1. 1 2 https://theses.gla.ac.uk/8601/1/2017CollingridgePhD.pdf
  2. ↑ https://companycheck.co.uk/director/902944190/MS-VANESSA-JANE-COLLINGRIDGE/summary
  3. ↑ https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/eCftRuuzmQVmR8xke88E1zePOEw/appointments
  4. ↑ https://treesforlife.org.uk/plant-trees/grove/5256/
  5. 1 2 3 "Biography at Take 3 Management". Archived from the original on 30 December 2006. Retrieved 19 November 2006.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "You can't pigeonhole me ... because of my magpie brain", interview with Stephen Phelan, Sunday Herald
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Fancy meeting you here ...", The Scotsman, 4 March 2002
  8. ↑ Video clip of Collingridge describing her biography of James Cook (RealPlayer video)
  9. ↑ "The captain and the deflater", Sara Wheeler, The Spectator, 9 March 2002
  10. ↑ p.6, Boudica (2005), Ebury Press, ISBN 0-09-189819-6
  11. ↑ Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery. Film Australia, 2007
  12. ↑ "Weather girl and now author Vanessa Collingridge at home in Lochwinnoch", Stephenpics.co.uk, 2002
  13. ↑ "PhD candidates", Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow
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