Obituary: Edward Teague

Jun 26 2009 by William Leece, Liverpool Daily Post

EdwardTeague

THE question as to whether Britain really appreciates its scientists has never really been answered.

Despite all the due acknowledgement and honour of scientists from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking, the niggling feeling remains that, in the classically-educated heart of hearts of the British establishment, scientists are a breed apart.

In many ways interesting and engaging people, but would you really want your daughter to marry one?

Edward Teague was a biologist with a way with words, an industrialist who ran a bookshop and was once drama and literature officer for North West Arts.

He also had a sense of mischief coupled with an intellectual rigour that made him ask questions, and keep on asking them until he got some answers and a pattern began to emerge.

He studied botany at the then newly-established Leicester University in the 1960s, and embarked on research in Edinburgh before returning to his native Manchester to join the family cotton business.

But he was so multi-talented that he would never settle down to an upwardly plodding career.

At various stages in his life, he was an advertising copywriter, bookshop owner, art gallery director, North West Arts officer and a United Nations adviser in North Korea.

His knowledge of the North West, its people and its culture, was phenomenal, and as a commentator through his online blog, he was never one to be fobbed off with an official explanation if the truth was something different.

He wrote variously as Postman Patel or Lord Patel, not flinching from either a challenging viewpoint, an awkward question or some uncomfortable facts.

His blogs were appallingly badly-typed – spell-checkers do not seem to have been part of his world – but they paint a cumulative picture of a libertarian who knew his own mind, with little time for the smooth talking of politicians of any conviction.

Edward Teague, industrialist and polymath; born, January 25, 1943, died, June 9, 2009