Biography

Dr Tim Madge is an author, historian and journalist. He studied politics, international relations and history at Southampton University at undergraduate level, subsequently working for an Ph.D on the relationship between psychoanalysis and political thought. His second doctoral thesis was on consensus theory using post-war broadcasting policy in the UK as a theoretical model. He is a former visiting fellow, City University, where he did post-doctoral research on broadcasters’ accountability to the public (the BAARTA study funded by the Leverhulme Trust).

His specialist historical period is the Second World War, as well as the Victorian period in Europe. For many years he taught these subjects, as well as communications and journalism, to American students of Boston U, Tufts U, American U, Temple U, Florida State U and a number of other American universities on their London Programmes. For a while he ran all the print journalism courses at what is now the University of the Arts, London.

Tim Madge is the author of 22 books, including the best-selling award-winning Maiden (written with Tracy Edwards), a biography of Bill Tilman, the explorer, and a history of Royal and State Yachts. His book, Long Voyage Home, a social history of the decline of the British merchant and naval fleets, was adapted and presented by him on BBC Radio 4. His most recently conventionally published book in the UK was a social history of cocaine (White Mischief). He has written a Victorian literary thriller, published as an e-book on Amazon, along with a thriller set in rural Ireland in the 1950s. More recently, there has been Dreamland, and the first part of the Chronicles of Peascod, as well as Saving Darcy.

In 2018, Endeavour Media re-published three of his books as e-books, Long Voyage Home, The Last Hero, and White Mischief. They published his novel, Savage,  in July, 2019

Tim has worked as a journalist, off and on since leaving university, both full and part-time, a period of over 45 years. His last full-time post was as Managing Editor, New Media for RCN Publishing. Between 2015 and 2017, he worked for the Telegraph group as a content editor. In 2016 he worked for the FT as a news sub, and in 2018 he worked as a news sub for The Times.  Previously, he has worked, at one time or another, for all the UK broadsheet newspapers in a number of roles – principally as a feature writer and editor. He has also written for a very wide range of consumer and specialist magazines. For a while, he was a columnist for UPI in the USA, and for New Scientist magazine in the UK. In the late 1980s he set up the award-winning Young Guardian for TheGuardian. In 2001, he was the launch editor of the UK’s first all-colour tabloid newspaper for the marine industry, All At Sea. In between, Tim has worked with (and launched) a number of websites, including the pioneering ePulse in 1998.

Aside from the daily grind, Tim is an Offshore Yachtmaster (and a trans-Atlantic sailor); he has held a Private Pilot’s Licence for both single-engined conventional aircraft, and for ultra-lights*, but prefers these days to paraglide. He remains active mountaineer, rock climber (occasional caver), and skis both downhill and cross-country. Tim is an extremely keen horse rider (having a British Horse Society AI qualification). Currently, he is able to ride in Windsor Great Park. In 2010 he started to develop a new outdoor pursuit: recreational tree climbing.

Tim is qualified as an expedition paramedic, and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, as well as a member of the Society of Authors and of the Royal Society for Literature.

Tim previously lived on a Dutch barge on the upper Thames, near Windsor.

Now married to Vicky, they live in Windsor close to the Park and the river. He has two adult married sons from a previous marriage, one a hospital doctor, the other an IT security specialist.                                                                                                                  

*In 1994 he flew the Hastings –Dieppe direct route across the Channel in a single engine open cockpit microlight and thus holds – so far – the world record for such a flight. The distance from over the open sea is 75 miles. It has not – yet – been challenged.