Nigel Tangye

Nigel Trevithick Tangye (24 April 1909 – 2 June 1988) was a British airman, novelist, journalist and the author of various books about Cornwall.

Family
He was the brother of Derek Tangye, and grandson of Richard Tangye. He was married to the actress Ann Todd.

Career
Born in Kensington, Nigel Tangye started his career in the Royal Navy, 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, Tangye covered the Spanish Civil War.

In 1938 he wrote Teach Yourself to Fly, a book designed to help flying students with the basics before entering an aeroplane. The book was sufficiently well-regarded that it became recommended by the British Air Ministry 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.

In later years he lived in Cornwall and died in Camborne, aged 79.

Works (selected)

 * 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 Evening News (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; ISBN 978-0-340-96614-3)
 * 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 ISBN 0718303237 (autobiography)
 * 1976: The Inconstant Sea: a Cornishman's chronicle. London: William Kimber ISBN 0-7183-0274-5
 * 1977: From Rock and Tempest. London: William Kimber ISBN 0718303156 (about shipwrecks round the Lizard peninsula)
 * 1978: Voyage into Cornwall's Past. London: William Kimber ISBN 071830196X (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 ISBN 0904040127.
 * 1980: The Living Breath of Cornwall. London: William Kimber ISBN 0718300084 (a voyage in the ketch Spray)
 * 1981: Cornwall and the Tumbling Sea. London: William Kimber ISBN 0718302583
 * 1981: A Girl, a Boy and a Gannet: a Tale of the Cornish Coast; illustrations by Margot Maeckelberghe. Padstow: Lodenek Press ISBN 0-902899-93-7
 * 1982: Proud Seas and Cornwall's Past. London: William Kimber ISBN 0718300793
 * 1986: The Blue Bays of Cornwall. London: William Kimber ISBN 0-7183-0595-7

Films

 * 1936: Things to Come (aeronautical advisor; designer of the 1970 Type swallow-winged aeroplane, Raymond Massey’s one man flying wing from the film
 * 1940: Conquest of the Air (technical advisor, associate producer)
 * 1948: Daybreak (composer, song "Daybreak"; score published and held by the British Library