Hugo Ralph VickersDL (born 12 November 1951) is an English writer and broadcaster.
Early life
The son of Ralph Cecil Vickers, M.C.,[1] a stockbroker, senior partner in the firm of Vickers, da Costa, by his marriage in 1950 to Dulcie Metcalf,[2] Vickers was born in Lambeth and educated at Eton in the late 1960s and then at Strasbourg University.[3] He has a younger sister, Imogen. His aunt was the politician Baroness Vickers.[4]
In September 2001, Vickers wrote a Victorian Evening where he performed alongside Prunella Scales, in the presence of the Earl and Countess of Wessex. A year later in 2002, he compiled an evening of poetry, prose and music—called The Queen Mother's Century; in 2005 he devised a programme of Desert Island Discs, interviewing Robert Hardy who portrayed Sir Winston Churchill; he wrote an anthology of readings and music called The Queen's Childhood in September 2006. Once again, Vickers appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2007. In September of that year, he wrote (and designed the set and selected the music on its first showing) his first one-man show, entitled A Lonely Poet, which featured Charles Duff. This show was later renamed The Immortal Dropout.
Vickers was appointed chairman of the Jubilee Walkway Trust in October 2002, which had been founded in 1977 as a lasting memory of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, and later refurbished and updated to commemorate her Golden Jubilee. Being in this role, he welcomed Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to the Mall to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Queen's coronation in 2003, and again on 19 November 2007, when the royal couple unveiled the Diamond Wedding panoramic panel in Parliament Square. He is also the Chairman of the Outdoor Trust which puts Walkways into Commonwealth countries.
^ abMusicians of the Millennium: A Biographical Guide to Members of the Worshipful Company of Musicians (London: Worshipful Company of Musicians, 2000), p. 264: "VICKERS Hugo Ralph b 12 November 1951 s of Ralph Cecil Vickers Educ Eton 1964–69. Strasbourg University , France 1970–71."
^"Hugo and Elizabeth Vickers' wedding". Tatler.com. 5 December 1995. Retrieved 14 September 2023. Many of the guests at Wyeford in Hampshire were puzzled that the author Hugo Vickers and his bride (and second cousin) Elizabeth Vickers were giving a wedding reception without a wedding. 'It's far too difficult to compete with the Crown Princes and Imrans of 1995 in marriage stakes,' they joked, and later slipped off to a pretty church in a hillside village in France for the ceremony. In the meantime, they entertained 180 of their closest friends with an Arcadian lunch in the garden, after which the guests crossed the moat to watch a medieval joust staged in the couple's honour by Hugo's American godfather, Mr William M. Weaver.
^"Hugo Ralph VICKERS personal appointments". Find and update company information. GOV.UK. Retrieved 14 September 2023. ...Correspondence address: Wyeford, Ramsdell, Tadley, Hampshire...
