MA Biography students and alumni

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Jenni Beard

It is a few years since I took the Master of Arts course in Biography and I am now retired. Retirement can be an odd state, without the confines of 'work' there is freedom but little direction. Luckily I decided when I finished my degree that I would attempt to write a book so thanks to the MA course there is always something I should be doing.

The elements of the biography course have given me tools to work practically towards my goal. The research methods covered the details necessary to write factual academic papers, the taught courses explored areas of biography outside of ones comfort zone and proved to be exciting and stimulating, the tutorials were lively sessions experiencing other students view points as well as gaining valuable insights from course tutors and the written papers gave one the practical experience of writing.

Anna Thomasson

I came across an advert for the Biography MA, one afternoon, whilst idly trawling the internet at the magazine publishing house where I was working. I had graduated in English from Bristol University in the previous year. Though the magazine work was interesting, it was the research that interested me most and I was desperate to write something longer than 100 words. I eventually decided to do an MA but I didn't want a course that just felt like a continuation or a development of my first degree. So when I saw the advert for the Buckingham course I was immediately intrigued. As an avid reader of biographies I was excited by the prospect of studying the history and development of biography writing and, more importantly, by the opportunity to write a biography of my own, under the guidance of a respected and prize-winning biographer.

I was not disappointed by my decision. Very early on I decided to do the MA by research so that I could write a larger dissertation, rather than as a taught course with a number of smaller assignments. In 2007 I was upgraded to MPhil because of the quality and extent of my research. And in that year my biography was shortlisted for the Daily Mail Biographers' Club Prize.

Jane Ridley is incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and supportive. As a published biographer she knows the business of writing and publishing biography inside-out and as a historian she encourages thorough research, good writing and an academic engagement with the subject. My fellow students were a fascinating mix of people, both younger and older and from all walks of life. The course has given me access to agents, publishers and many well-known biographers. I am so glad that I made the decision to study Biography at Buckingham, I now have a book that I'm hoping to publish. The course is fascinating and I would strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to do an MA, but one that's a little bit different to the rest.

Victoria Fishburn

Victoria Fishburn with Dr Tony Crawforth

The MA course at Buckingham came at the right stage of my life. I had embarked upon an undergraduate degree in my late forties, as my four children were reaching the latter stages of education and were off to university themselves. With a First in History under my belt and an interest in research, I was attracted to the chance to explore the historical and literary aspects of writing a life. I discovered the MA course at Buckingham, one of very few in the country. It offered me a rigorous chance to learn more about research methods, to hear speakers of the highest calibre, to read and discuss all aspects of biography and, most of all, to benefit from the expertise of our tutor, who is both a top-level academic and a published biographer. The course has given me a wide-ranging knowledge of the skills of biography and the confidence to go on to publish myself.

Nigel Collett

The cover of Nigel Collett's book After twenty years in the Army, I set up a ships' crewing business to employ the Gurkha soldiers with whom I'd served. I settled for a while in Buckingham and took the MA in Biography from 2001-2002, attracted by the course's unique melding of history and literature. Highly stimulating and great fun, the course offered a perfect balance of theory and the study of an eclectic range of biographies, giving students scope to study subjects of their choice. I found the dissertation subject I had chosen was of such interest that I carried on with the research after gaining the MA and turned it into a book. This, The Butcher of Amritsar, a life of Brigadier Reginald Dyer, the perpetrator of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, was published in 2005.

The Biography MA gave me the tools to launch out on a career as a biographer: the theoretical framework; a knowledge of the major biographical figures, texts and techniques; an exposure to British research resources and an introduction to agents and publishers, one of whom published my book. Above all, it gave me a thirst to write.

As a result of launching my book in Hong Kong, where I now live, I was invited in 2005 to become a moderator for the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, and am now a member of the Festival's Authors Committee. I review regularly for the online Asian Review of Books (external link) and occasionally for other journals. In 2008, with others, I founded and still chair the Hong Kong Tongzhi Literary Society, a group dedicated to the fostering of local literature in both English and Chinese. I am still writing, and am now working on a life of Leslie Cheung, a hugely popular Hong Kong film and pop star.

Margaret de Foblanque

I studied History at Cambridge and then worked in the Civil Service for some thirty years. It was an interesting and exciting career, but I eventually resigned to accompany my husband abroad. I had already become interested in a Victorian woman painter, Henrietta Ward, who was my husband's great-great-grandmother and who had written two entertaining if unreliable sets of memoirs. So the Buckingham Biography course offered an ideal way of making use of my time to pursue this interest. It also provided me with a justification for my biography-reading habit. Basically the course seemed tailor-made for me and I loved every minute of it.

The course was compressed into one day of the week, which enabled me to commute, and it was flexible enough to accommodate the needs and interests of all the students. Buckingham itself was a delight, with its friendly staff, lovely grounds, and brilliant breakfasts (very welcome after a long journey). Apart from supervising us and introducing us to the initially somewhat intimidating London libraries, Dr Ridley brought us into contact throughout the course with other professional biographers and publishers.

I took just over two years to obtain my MA, with happy hours in the British Library and other archives of varying degrees of comfort. It was great to work with other students who shared my enthusiasms. By happy coincidence the three of us pursuing the research degree option at the time had overlapping interests, with our subjects rather neatly dovetailing in terms of dates and backgrounds. So we were able to share books and sources as well as each other's triumphs when a crucial fact was unearthed in some obscure archive. My own research, helpfully guided at all stages by Dr Ridley, took me from Windsor Castle to Rochdale, and I now have an intimate acquaintance with the basements and storerooms of some far-flung art galleries.

I would love to do the whole course again. I just need to find another subject!

Wynn Wheldon

Bernard Shaw once remarked that youth is wasted on the young, and much the same can be said for education. I managed a Third Class degree in English from New College, Oxford, and then spent thirty years properly educating myself in preparation for an MA in Biography at Buckingham. Where there had been stress, here was pleasure, where there had been intellectual pride, here was genuine curiosity, where there had been tortuous essays on Donne, here were enjoyable bibliographies to compile

Jane Ridley’s gently sardonic approach, combined as it is with an understated rigour and first rate academic proficiency, makes the course agreeably sociable as well as intellectually stimulating. Indeed, in many ways it is perhaps as close to a Platonically ideal notion of what being at university is for as it is possible nowadays to get.

I applied in order to be made to write about my father, Huw Wheldon; this was initially a need, not a want, but the unfailing support and encouragement I received from Jane and from other tutors (and fellow students) made it less an act of piety than an act of literary endeavour (though I hesitate to go so far as to say an act of scholarship).

I heartily recommend this course to anyone with an interest either in themselves or in someone else: it will demonstrate that biography is not simply a way of seeing an individual, but is also a way of seeing a world.