Michael Briggs, a man of great mystery, left an eternal imprint on the lives that he touched. He was indeed dapper and debonair. He always wore a sports coat and cleanly pressed trousers, finished off with aviator sunglasses that only added to his mystery and intrigue. Yet, beneath this impressive façade hid a life replete with firsts, infamous accusations, and a legacy still mired in controversy.
Briggs suddenly walked out on his family when his daughter, Joanne Briggs, was only seven years old. This abrupt abandonment set the stage for an unstable attachment that would follow Joanne for 40 years. As she grew into adulthood, the stories of her father’s life became too wild to be believed. He claimed to have advised Stanley Kubrick on the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey, smuggled a gun and microfiche over the Berlin Wall, and even conducted an experiment on Mars that led to the discovery of an alien life form.
During his career, Briggs was employed by NASA, working at the vaunted California Institute of Technology. In 1966 he moved to a similar position in Schering’s UK research department, working on hormone research. This abrupt transformation led to controversy. He had given up Britain and his position at Schering to begin anew in Africa with a colleague, but when he returned it was a string of rejections from leading scientists that awaited him as he looked for new work. Even so, a number of his applications inexplicably went through.
Briggs had a nice little adventure in Australia before making the long journey to Spain. In 1986, he moved back to the UK, wanting to re-establish his relationship with his daughter. By that time Joanne was already neck deep in her father’s complex life. She had a million questions running through her head that were very overwhelming.
This set up the crisis that erupted in 1992 when a paper published in Nature by Jim Rossiter’s group exposed that Michael Briggs had faked his PhD. This unexpected disclosure quickly sunk his mayoral claims and raised doubts about his past assertions, leading to a forensic investigation into his life’s work.
“But somehow, I felt I couldn’t just leave it at that. I contacted the librarian and asked for some screenshots of its pages. I suppose as a barrister I am used to proving things.” – Joanne Briggs
Joanne’s exploration of her father’s secret history has been laced with sorrow and difficult realizations. She reflects on how the same names kept coming up during her research. Among them was Primodos, a drug embroiled in several controversies in the medical world.
“I’d never even heard of Primodos but it kept popping up,” – Joanne Briggs
When she became aware that her father’s name was appearing in these conversations, she was shocked.
“To my astonishment so did my father’s name.” – Joanne Briggs
The depth of Michael Briggs’ character makes you question his mental state and motivations. Joanne recognized that her father was under tremendous duress to invent a bigger-than-life persona. He was motivated by the quest for greatness and achievement.
“He was a man who grew up reading science fiction and got the idea that he could be a spaceman, that he could know all of science,” – Joanne Briggs
She asked him if he really thought he had to “fake it until you make it.” In the process, had he lost sight of the truth that he had formerly conjured into being?
When Joanne tried to learn about her father’s life, she ran into roadblocks. The man she knew did not fit the radical, anarchist image painted in dozens of other articles and papers. The Sunday Times covered Michael Briggs in a way most damning that rapidly went viral. He called it a “misunderstanding, a bundle of misrepresentations.”
“I recall a journalist contacted my brother and me as soon as the news broke, with a conspiracy theory that he was either in hiding or had been killed,” – Joanne Briggs
This bizarre circumstance led to rampant speculation about her father’s whereabouts. We had just learned that he had passed away in November, shortly after the release of that piece in September.
“The whole thing seemed to need another explanation,” – Joanne Briggs
Initially, she felt concern for his safety and if the scandal had ruined him. Now, those fears almost never enter her mind.
The further Joanne dug into her father’s questionable legacy, the more she felt that she needed to be telling others what she was discovering.
“I told them: ‘You know all those things I told you about my dad, the incredible scientist? Turns out he made the whole thing up.’” – Joanne Briggs
With help from friends and family members, she started to write her way through her father’s life and legacy.
“Many of them said I should write a book. When I had 8,000 words or so, I decided to enter the Bridport Memoir prize.” – Joanne Briggs
Joanne reminisced about her father’s short-lived tenure at NASA, designing Mars probes. She weighed the reasons behind his leaving that plum job.
“He was only there for a year, probably less. I think something must have gone very wrong because that was his fantasy job,” – Joanne Briggs
As the story progresses, it explores more complex ideas about identity and truth. Ultimately, it’s about how far people will go to prove their own stories.