Alan Coren

Alan Coren (27 June 1938 – 18 October 2007) was an English humourist, writer and satirist who was a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff. Coren was also a journalist, and for almost a decade was the editor of Punch magazine. Early life and education Alan Coren was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in East Barnet, Hertfordshire, in 1938, the son of builder and plumber Samuel Coren and his wife Martha, a hairdresser. In the introduction to Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks: The Essential Alan Coren, Giles and Victoria Coren conclude that Samuel Coren was "an odd job man really" and had also apparently been a debt collector. Coren was educated at Osidge Primary School and East Barnet Grammar School. Having gained a scholarship, he studied English at Wadham College, Oxford. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1960: as per tradition, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Oxon) degree. Having won a Harkness Fellowship, he then studied for a doctorate in modern American literature at Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley. He did not complete his PhD. Life and career Coren considered an academic career but instead decided to become a writer and journalist. In his later life he distanced himself from his Jewish heritage, being 'slightly embarrassed' and stating in an interview with The Independent, 'I haven't been Jewish for years!'.