Eric Midwinter

Eric Clare Midwinter OBE, (born February 1932) is an English author, broadcaster and academic.He is a consumer advocate, a social policy analyst, a historian of the sport of cricket and an expert on British comedy.

Eric Midwinter, born in 1932 in Sale, Cheshire, where he attended the local grammar school, was an Exhibitioner of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, 1952-55. He obtained a BA with First Class Honours, in Part II of the History Tripos, was elected a Life Scholar of the College and won the Figgis Memorial Prize for History. His other academic awards include MA (Cantab) 1959, MA in Education (Liverpool) 1968 and DPhil (York) 1966.

He was Director of the Centre for Policy on Ageing, 1980-91, when the Centre was developing its new role as a policy institute or "think tank", and was also Chairman of CPA, 2002-2008. Prior to his post at CPA, he was Director of the Liverpool Educational Priority Area Project, Principal of the progressive Liverpool Teachers Centre and Head of the Public Affairs Unit at the National Consumer Council. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter, 1992-2001, and was Chairman of the Community Development Centre, Coventry, 1993-2000. He was Chairman of the government sponsored London Regional Passengers Committee, 1977-96, and served on the Central Transport Users Committee during the same period.

A social historian, educationalist and social policy analyst, he has enjoyed a long career in the public and voluntary service. He is a Co-founder of the University of the Third Age and he was consultant to the Millennium Debate of the Age project and to the International Longevity Centre – UK. He served as Chairman of the Health and Social Welfare Board of the Open University and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Open University. He was a member of the Carnegie Inquiry into the Third Age Committee; a member of the Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for Disabled and Elderly People; and for five years the member with special interest in older people on the Prince of Wales Advisory Group on Disability. Eric Midwinter also completed a European Commission study, under the auspices of Age Concern England, into the feasibility of a Senior Euro-pass.

Well-known as writer and broadcaster, he has also won critical acclaim as a double award-winning cricket author (he was for seven years President of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians and for six years Chairman of Judges for The Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year) He is also well-known as a perceptive authority on the history of British comedy about which he has published widely. He is the author of over fifty publications on a broad range of subjects.