Having lived a life around stories, I am always honoured to be able to use my experience to help capture and celebrate the lives of fascinating characters across East Anglia and beyond.
As a teenager at a progressive boarding school, my storytelling was initially inspired by Smirnoff advertising, Genesis, and Roman Polanski among many. I went on to love Bernard Shaw, Betjeman and Shakespeare and played Snug in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at The Old Vic for a season.
In my professional life, I co-led two creative services groups. My client work involved ‘communicating with consumers’ by helping tell the stories of some of the biggest global brands and popular books, films and TV franchises including Microsoft, Ishiguro, Titanic and The Simpsons among many others.
I have also written and performed scores of poems and short stories. You can find some of these performed on You Tube via the ‘Storytelling’ section of this website. One piece written for BBC Radio 4 is archived in the National Library as ‘social history for posterity’.
I live near Sudbury on the Essex/Suffolk border. I enjoy serving the community in various capacities, including as Founding CEO of the Trust that created Stour Valley Community School in Clare and as CEO of AFC Sudbury, incorporating 600 players, 36 teams and 140 full time students aged 16 to 19 in its Academy.
Stour Valley Community School was the first in the UK to be approved under the 2011 Academies Bill. As part of the process to create the school, engage the community and secure the funding, I both met with the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education in The Cabinet Office at 10, Downing Street and was the first interview on The News at Ten after the report of The Queen opening parliament, as it was a flagship bill.
Whilst CEO at AFC Sudbury, I helped pivot its purpose away from ‘football for football’s sake’ to a vision to improve physical health and mental wellbeing across the community and to help make Sudbury a great place to live, work and thrive. Meanwhile both our men’s and women’s first teams reached their historically highest league positions and we gained a £1.4 million inward investment to build a second 3G facility for the community based on the way that we embraced equality, diversity and inclusion, including women’s and girl’s football and disability football.
Having officiated at both wedding and funeral ceremonies over the years, I now specialise in non-religious and semi-religious funerals having initially qualified for a NOCN Level 3 Diploma in Funeral Celebrancy, it being the highest accredited national qualification. I studied with Civil Ceremonies, completing the course at Cranfield University.
In conclusion, as a lucky member of a lucky generation, I am consistently privileged to provide my lived experience and storytelling capability to help celebrate and commemorate the lives of successful people who, like me, have enjoyed the last few decades to the full.