May 30, 2014updated 03 Jun 2014 6:21pm

Private Eye co-founder Richard Ingrams, 76, retires: ‘I’m too old’ to attend Oldie disciplinary hearing

Richard Ingrams, a co-founder of Private Eye, is retiring from journalism after more than 50 years following “a series of disagreements” with the publisher of his second magazine, The Oldie.

Ingrams, who has edited The Oldie since founding it 22 years ago, had been summoned for a disciplinary hearing next Monday, but said that at 76 he is “too old” to attend.

"It's a matter of great regret," he told Press Gazette. "But I've been there for 22 years, and that's not a bad run."

Announcing his resignation from The Oldie today, Ingrams (pictured, James Young) said: “I have greatly enjoyed working on The Oldie with an outstanding team and I would have liked to go on doing the job.

“But at 76 I consider myself too old for disciplinary hearings.

“However it is reassuring however to know that I still have the capacity to annoy people.”

Ingrams co-founded the Eye in 1962, and was editor between 1963 and 1986, when he handed the job down to current editor Ian Hislop. Last year, he suggested that his successor has held the position for “too long”.

Under Ingrams, The Oldie has risen to become one of the most popular current affairs magazines in the UK.

Its last ABC figures, for the second half of 2013, showed a 1.2 per cent circulation increase to 44,555. This is up nearly 20,000 in ten years.

Asked today about the future of magazines, Ingrams said he remains confident. He added: "There's something about a magazine that appeals as something that's in print rather than online. A magazine is something people want to hold and carry about with them and read in the bath.”

And he paid tribute to The Oldie’s many contributors over the past 22 years, many of whom “have gone to a better place”.

"The great thing about The Oldie I think is the way it has attracted unsolicited articles from the readers," he said. "A whole lot of them have been quite brilliant."

Ingrams, who lives in rural Berkshire and had worked at The Oldie’s central London offices four days a week, is now working on a book about Ludovic Kennedy.

Oldie publisher James Pembroke has so far not responded to Press Gazette’s request for a comment.