Prof Brian Cox | Greater Mancunians

Photography by Katie O'Neill and Lilly Shields

Brian Cox is a physician, musician and broadcaster. His official title reads as follows: Professor Brian Cox CBE, FRS, Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester and Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science. Brian was born on March 3rd, 1968 in the Royal Oldham Hospital, later living in nearby Chadderton from 1971.

Brian Cox: Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester (Image - UoM)

Brian's biography on his official website charts his journey from his early years in Oldham to his meteoric rise to become one of the UK's most recognisable faces.

In his own words...

There was a newsagent on the corner of Kenilworth Avenue and Middleton Road. On Fridays, my granddad would take me there and we’d buy a toy, usually a little car or truck. I’ve still got most of them. When I was older, I’d play tennis on the red cinder courts in Chadderton Hall Park, and drink Woodpecker Cider on the bench in the grounds of St Matthews Church. I attended St Matthews Infant School, Chadderton Hall Primary School and Hulme Grammar School in Oldham.

Oldham looks like Joy Division sounds, and I like Joy Division… It was a wonderful place to grow up.

In 1986, I was on my way to study electrical and electronic engineering at The University of Leeds when I got distracted by music and joined a rock band called Dare, fronted by ex-Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton. Dare recorded two albums for A&M records and toured as support act for Jimmy Page, Gary Moore and Europe. Towards the end of a support tour in 1991, we had a disagreement in a bar in Berlin and I left the band to study physics with astrophysics at the University of Manchester.

Brian Cox in Dare (far right)

Whilst waiting for my degree course to begin, I needed a job, and managed to find one as sound engineer and driver for a band called D:ream. In the spring of 1992, the band signed a record deal and secured an appearance on a London regional TV show. Because I had long hair and played keyboards , Peter Cunnah, the lead singer and songwriter, asked me to step in and mime the part. In this way, I accidently joined D:ream, who subsequently had a number one hit single with “Things Can Only Get Better”. The song had a second life in 1997 as the anthem for the New Labour election campaign which saw Tony Blair enter Downing Street. Being a member of D:ream allowed me to fulfil one of my lifetime ambitions, which was to appear on the legendary UK music show Top of The Pops, a gift for which I will be forever grateful.

Brian (far left) in 90s pop icon's D:ream (Image - Pictorial Press)

I graduated with a 1st class honours degree in 1995 and a PhD in experimental particle physics in 1998. On graduating in 1998, I received a 3-year PPARC postdoctoral fellowship, followed by a 5-year PPARC Advanced Fellowship. I continued to work on H1 and at the D-Zero experiment at the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab near Chicago, before joining ATLAS at CERN and becoming the spokesperson of the FP420 R&D project at the Large Hadron Collider. In 2005 I was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which I held until 2013. In 2009 I was appointed Professor of Particle Physics at The University of Manchester. In 2016 I became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In mid-2009 I was offered the chance to make my first big documentary series, originally titled “Seven Wonders of the Solar System”. I vividly remember the first filming day in Tromso, Norway; March 22nd, 2009. The person in the photograph had no idea that television would become a third career after music and alongside academia.

Brian's first day filming “Wonders of the Solar System”, March 2009 (Image - BBC)

Contemplating The Universe is exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure.

I followed Solar System with two more “Wonders” series, “Wonders of the Universe” in 2011 and Wonders of Life in 2013, Human Universe in 2014 and Forces of Nature in 2016. In 2019 I made a series called The Planets, which was in a sense an update of Wonders of the Solar System. In 2021 came “Universe’. The series was filmed in unprecedented times during a global pandemic predicted by science, and ultimately alleviated by science. I think the experience shaped the series and made it more philosophical and perhaps more polemical. After all, the reliable knowledge upon which our understanding of genetics and viruses and vaccines rests was not acquired by fashionable cynics but by people driven by wonder. The foundations of that wonder lie amongst the stars because astronomy is the oldest science, and therefore a celebration of astronomy felt both apposite and necessary.

THE '60 SECOND' SHOOT: the Engineering Building, University of Manchester

'Universally Manchester Festival' celebrating the 200th anniversary of the University of Manchester

Prof Brian Cox - Apollo's Children (Official)
Prof Brian Cox - X (Twitter)
Prof Brian Cox - The Infinite Monkey Cage

Student reflection: Lilly Shields

THE SIXTY SECOND SHOOT!

The photo opportunity was at ‘Universally Manchester Festival' celebrating the 200th anniversary of the University of Manchester in summer 2024. Brian was delivering a public lecture in the afternoon and we promised 10 minutes with him beforehand.

We arrived in good time and waited outside the room 3A.086 (Brian’s green room). No one appeared. A panicked phone call to the organisers revealed that they gave us the wrong room number and we had missed our slot. A quick march to the lecture theatre, and a curt conversation with the organisers later, we were promised 5 mins at the back the lecture theatre. We were asked to wait in a reception area and then brought into a narrow side room with plain white walls and no natural light. Brian was escorted into meet us looking a little bewildered. We were told that we would have just one minute as Brian was about to start his lecture. There was no time for small talk, me and Katie only had time to grab 5 frames each before snatching a photo with Brian followed by a quick handshake and a goodbye. Thank goodness we brought our trusty LED light wand otherwise the shoot would have been a complete disaster.

Lilly & Brian

The whole experience was so surreal, I still wonder if I ever actually met Brian Cox.

The crucial lessons to be taken from this shoot were: stand your ground, don't take no for an answer, and never leave until you get the shot!

It was a massive honour to have this opportunity to add to my Greater Mancunian shoots. But if I would have blinked… I would almost certainly have missed it!