Hugh McManners

Who is Hugh McManners?

Joseph Hugh McManners is a British medical research charity director, author, television producer and presenter, journalist, and musician, and songwriter.

He was born into an academic family in Oxford, the son of historian The Rev. Professor John McManners, and was brought up in Australia. He was educated at Sydney Church of England Grammar School, Shore, Magdalen College School, Oxford, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He read Geography at St Edmund Hall Oxford.

McManners spent eighteen years in the British Army, the majority of his time serving with 3 Commando Brigade. He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1973 and was promoted Lieutenant in 1974 and Captain in 1979.

During the Falklands War in 1982 he fought with the Special Boat Service and worked with the SAS, and was awarded a Mention in Despatches. He was promoted Major in 1985. He spent five years with 148 Commando Forward Observation Battery, as a commando, paratrooper and an army diving supervisor, and ran the British Army's jungle warfare training school in Belize. McManners then passed the year-long Army Staff College course at Camberley, and spent two years working at the Ministry of Defence in London. He has served at Fort Ord California with the US Army's 2nd Infantry Division, on counter terrorist duties in Armagh, Northern Ireland, and with the United Nations in Cyprus during the Turkish invasion of 1974. After commanding 17 Corunna Field Battery with the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, he retired from the Army in 1989.