He is a consumer advocate, a social policy analyst, a historian of the sport of cricket and an expert on British comedy.
Eric Midwinter was born in Sale, Lancashire, in 1932, and was educated at a local grammar school and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read history.
He has been Chairman of the Health and Social Welfare Board of the Open University, which awarded to him an Honorary Doctorate, and he was a member of the Carnegie Inquiry into the Third Age Committee.
He completed a European Commission study, under the auspices of Age Concern England, into the feasibility of a Senior Euro-pass.
[4] He was for several years editor of the MCC Annual, and he has prepared many notices of the lives of cricketers and comedians for the old and new Dictionary of National Biography.