Nigel Trevithick Tangye (24 April 1909 – 2 June 1988) was a British

airman An airman is a member of an air force or air arm of a nation's armed forces. In certain air forces, it can also refer to a specific enlisted rank. An airman can also be referred as a soldier in other definitions. In civilian aviation usage, t ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

, journalist and the writer of various books about

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. He worked for MI5, and later claimed to have been an MI5 agent during the Spanish Civil War.

Family

He was the brother of the writer Derek Tangye. Their father was , in turn the son of the engineer

Richard Tangye Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye (24 November 183314 October 1906) was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment. Biography Richard Tangye was born at Illogan, near Redruth, Cornwall, the fifth son in a family of six sons and thre ...

. He was married to the actress

Ann Todd Dorothy Ann Todd (24 January 1907 – 6 May 1993) was an English film, television and stage actress who achieved international fame when she starred in 1945's ''The Seventh Veil''. From 1949 to 1957 she was married to David Lean who directed he ...

Career

Born in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, Nigel Tangye started his career in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

, spending three years in the Mediterranean having graduated at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He then left the Navy and devoted himself to learning to fly. He soon earned a Professional Pilot's 'B' Licence, the Navigator's Licence and the Air Ministry Instructor's Licence. After that he performed aerobatic demonstrations and worked as a flying instructor at the London Aeroplane Club. As the aviation correspondent for the London ''

Evening News Evening News may refer to: Television news *''CBS Evening News'', an American news broadcast *''ITV Evening News'', a UK news broadcast *'' JNN Evening News'', a Japanese news broadcast *''Evening News'', an alternate name for '' News Hour'' in so ...

'', Tangye covered the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

.Preston, Paul. ''We Saw Spain Die: Foreign Correspondents in the Spanish Civil War''. Constable. 2008 His 1937 account of the war, ''Red, White and Spain'', provided a strongly pro-Nationalist viewpoint. However, Tangye later recorded that it had been ″written by the author as a cover to his assignment by MI5 as a secret agent in the Spanish War″ seeking information on German military involvement. There is independent evidence that he worked in MI5’s press department, later acting briefly as its director. In 1938 he wrote ''Teach Yourself to Fly'', a book designed to help flying students with the basics before entering an aeroplane. The book - the first of the

Teach Yourself Teach Yourself is currently an imprint of Hodder Education and formerly a series published by the English Universities Press (a subsidiary company of Hodder & Stoughton) that specializes in self-instruction books. The series, which began in 1938, ...

series - was sufficiently well-regarded that it became recommended by the British

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...

for pilots in the run up to and during the Second World War, and Tangye was asked to train prospective RAF pilots. In later life he became a hotelier at

Newquay Newquay ( ; kw, Tewynblustri) is a town on the north coast in Cornwall, in the south west of England. It is a civil parish, seaside resort, regional centre for aerospace industries, spaceport and a fishing port on the North Atlantic coast of ...

. In later years he lived in

and died in

Camborne Camborne ( kw, Kammbronn) is a town in Cornwall, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 20,845. The northern edge of the parish includes a section of the South West Coast Path, Hell's Mouth and Deadman's Cove. Camborne was formerl ...

, aged 79. There is a portrait of Tangye at the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

gallery, that was painted by

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...

in 1945.

Selected works

*1935: ''The Air is our Concern: a critical study of England's future in aviation''. London: Methuen (as editor) *1937: Contributions as Air Correspondent for the ''

'' (from 1937) *1937: ''Red, White and Spain''. London : Rich & Cowan (an account of a visit during the civil war) *1941: ''Teach Yourself To Fly''; by Squadron Leader Nigel Tangye, R.A.F.O. (1941) (Reprinted by Hodder, 2008; ) *1944: ''Britain in the Air''. London: William Collins **1947: --do.-- in: ''British Adventure''. London: William Collins (by six authors; ed. W. J. Turner; introd. by N. Tangye) *1959: ''The House on the Seine and Other Stories''. Newquay: Eric Hale *1962: ''The Story of Glendorgal: a personal view''. Truro: D. Bradford Barton **1984: --do.-- 3rd ed. Redruth: Dyllansow Truran *1974: ''Facing the Sea: a Cornishman remembers''. London: William Kimber (autobiography) *1976: ''The Inconstant Sea: a Cornishman's chronicle''. London: William Kimber *1977: ''From Rock and Tempest''. London: William Kimber (about shipwrecks round the Lizard peninsula) *1978: ''Voyage into Cornwall's Past''. London: William Kimber (in the ketch ''Spray'') *1980:
Cornwall Newspapers, 18th & 19th Century: gazetteer & finding list
'. 20 pp. Truro: Trevithick Society and Institute of Cornish Studies; 1 December 1980 . *1980: ''The Living Breath of Cornwall''. London: William Kimber (a voyage in the ketch ''Spray'') *1981: ''Cornwall and the Tumbling Sea''. London: William Kimber *1981: ''A Girl, a Boy and a Gannet: a Tale of the Cornish Coast''; illustrations by Margot Maeckelberghe. Padstow: Lodenek Press *1982: ''Proud Seas and Cornwall's Past''. London: William Kimber *1986: ''The Blue Bays of Cornwall''. London: William Kimber

Films

*1936: '' Things to Come'' (aeronautical advisor) *1940: ''Conquest of the Air'' (technical advisor, associate producer) *1948: ''Daybreak'' (composer, song "Daybreak"; score published and held by the British Library)Copac
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tangye, Nigel 1909 births 1988 deaths People from Camborne People from Kensington Novelists from Cornwall 20th-century English novelists Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College