Background
Their father was Richard Trevithick Gilbertstone Tangye, in turn the son of the engineer Richard Tangye.
Their father was Richard Trevithick Gilbertstone Tangye, in turn the son of the engineer Richard Tangye.
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 was the brother of the author Derek Tangye. 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 Royal Air Force pilots. In later life he became a hotelier at Newquay.
In later years he lived in Cornwall and died in Camborne, aged 79.
(about shipwrecks round the Lizard peninsula) X (in the ketch Spray) (a voyage in the ketch Spray).