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My Story

For thirty years I was a serving Police Officer and worked for 26 years in and around the Brighouse area, my home town. I have written three local history books and a weekly nostalgia column in the ‘Brighouse Echo’ weekly newspaper for 23 years.

Using a number of the weekly stories I produced a sixty-minute nostalgia cassette tape and hope to have a new CD version ready by the end of 2009. I have also written a small number of articles which have been published in regional magazines.

For over twenty five years I was teaching local history as an adult community learning tutor based in Brighouse and Elland areas of Calderdale. More recently I have been teaching tenants and resident association representatives weekly committee skills classes. Now I am teaching retired people the mysteries of the mobile phone where the age range of members in the class is from 65 to 90.

For almost 50 years I have been involved with brass bands both as a player and an administrator, but having recently retired from playing I am now concentrating my efforts on writing brass band nostalgia.

During the mid 1990’s I was beginning to be in demand as a local speaker and have now developed a style that both informs and entertains audiences.

The presentations have often been described as Infotainment and have been appreciated at Probus Clubs, Women’s Institutes, Wine Circles, Church Circles, Luncheon Clubs, Coffee Mornings, Trefoil Guild, History Societies, 3rd Age groups, Rotary, Round Table Clubs and many more, including on two occasions at the National Association of Brass Band Conductors annual convention and on one occasion for the guests in a small hotel in Cyprus whilst I was on holiday.

Speaker Finders have often asked me if I know any other speakers. As a result of these requests in 1997 I published the first edition of my West Yorkshire Speaker Directory. This directory had over 60 speakers, presenters, slide show hosts and small group musical entertainers. It has now become a bi-annual publication, along with two more directories for both North and South Yorkshire.

In recent years I was asked to contributed to Brass Review a specialist brass band magazine, and two years ago was commissioned to write for the British Bandsman magazine. These are stories of brass band nostalgia and are about some of the personalities and bands from yesteryear. Judging from the feedback I have received these contributions are proving to be very popular amongst the brass band fraternity. I was also a regular contributor to the very popular www.4barsest.com brass band website. For the last two years I have been the editor of The Conductor, the in-house magazine of the National Association of Brass Band conductors.

For over 10 years I have worked in the voluntary sector as an editor for the Calderdale Talking Newspaper. Along with the magazine’s team of readers we produce a quarterly magazine tape,

which is a blend of nostalgia, memories and how life used to be – a mixture well appreciated by the all their listeners.

I am also the producer and presenter of Sunday Bandstand a radio programme I present between 2pm / 3pm (UK time) every Sunday on Phoenix FM 96.7 (Beyond Calderdale it is only accessible via the internet (www.phoenixfm.co.uk).