Richard Boston


Richard Boston was an English journalist and author, a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist. An anarchist, toper, raconteur, marathon runner and practical joker, he described his pastimes as "soothsaying, shelling peas and embroidery" and argued that Adam and Eve were the first anarchists: "God gave them only one order and they promptly broke it".

Early life

Richard Boston was born in London and brought up on a Kent farm. He was educated at Stowe School, Regent Street Polytechnic and King's College, Cambridge. During the early 1960s he taught abroad in Sweden, Sicily and Paris. In 1966, towards the end of his period in France he worked as a film extra, acting as a longshot stand-in for Jacques Tati in his film Playtime.

Journalism

For more than 30 years Boston contributed to a range of newspapers, magazines and broadcast programmes. Initially, staff jobs included Peace News, New Society and The Times Literary Supplement, and he became known for an oddball but passionate take on the passing scene. From 1972 Boston was a freelance columnist, features and editorial writer on The Guardian.
Soon after starting, Boston, together with Michael McNay, came up the idea of a column about beer. Keg beers such as Watneys Red Barrel and Ind Coope Double Diamond were being pushed on the beer drinker with widespread distribution and high advertising budgets. These bland, sterile and gassy beers provided Aunt Sallies for his regular Saturday column in The Guardian, "Boston on Beer", which started shortly after the launch of the Campaign for Real Ale. Some regular readers might have been disappointed to hear that: "Despite all the talk of real ale, I have to say that, if ever I saw Richard in the village pub, he was usually drinking something stronger."
In 1977 he founded the environmentalist magazine Vole.

Quotes

By Richard Boston