Tag: Authors

Author Nick Oldham Releases First Novel ‘Nightmare City’

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Nick Oldham was born in Belthorn, Lancashire, in 1956. He’s been a police officer since the age of nineteen, spending the majority of his service in operational roles before retiring in 2005 after 30 years of service. He lives with his partner, Belinda, on the outskirts of Preston but has used his experiences in and around Blackpool as the basis for his popular crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Henry Christie. He appeared at Palatine Library in Blackpool for an event promoting his books on 1 September 2025. His career as an author began in 1996 with A Time for Justice,…

Malcolm Crane Releases ‘The Story of Ladies Golf’

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Though best known for his books about rugby union (The Rugby Clubs of England) and golf (The Story of Ladies’ Golf and A Century of Knott End Golf), Malcolm Crane is a lifelong racing enthusiast, whose passion has reached new heights as the co-owner of White Rhino, a racehorse that triumphed at the Cheltenham Festival in March 2024. Crane from Little Thornton, is a member of the syndicate that owns White Rhino, entered in the Pertemps Network Final Handicap. At which Manchester club did the mass murdering doctor Harold Shipman sometimes provide medical assistance? Which former Conservative party leader found… Read more »

Susan Brownrigg Starts Writing Her First Children’s Novel

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Susan Brownrigg is a Lancashire lass who grew up in Wigan and now lives in Skelmersdale, but loves to visit Blackpool as often as possible! She is the author of Gracie Fairshaw and the Mysterious Guest, Gracie Fairshaw and the Trouble at the Tower, Gracie Fairshaw and the Missing Reel, Kintana and the Captain’s Curse and Wrong Tracks. Brownrigg has worked as a library information assistant for three years and her previous career was in heritage and wildlife education. She worked at Norton Priory Museum for 12 years, most recently as learning manager. She has also worked at Tatton Park,… Read more »

Michael Harvey Teacher, Actor and Writer Arrives in Blackpool

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Blackpool lost one of its greatest treasures on 22 June 2024, a marvellous thinker and fountain of literary and theatrical knowledge, and always happy to share the wealth of his insight. One of his many remarkable talents was his ability to recite countless lines of great prose from Dickens to Wordsworth, or dialogue from great movies, plays or musicals. Michael was born in Oxford on 8 July 1935. His father was a percussionist in a theatre orchestra for all his working life, his mother a housewife; and happy to be that to care for Michael and his younger sister Margaret. His… Read more »

Susan Varley’s Badger’s Parting Gifts Gets Published

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Susan Varley is a British illustrator and author of children’s picture books. She was born in 1961 in Blackpool. Her best known book is Badger’s Parting Gifts, a story which aims to be a gentle introduction to old age and bereavement for young children. She both wrote and illustrated the book, and it was awarded the Mother Goose Award in 1985. Susan – who attended Baines Endowed Primary and Elmslie Girls School (background image). Varley studied graphic design and illustration at Manchester Polytechnic. Badger’s Parting Gifts was Susan Varley’s first book, it was published by Andersen Press in 1984. A… Read more »

Nathan Parker Releases First Book

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Nathan Parker is an independent author and spoken artist from Blackpool. Proud of his northern roots, Nathan is a keen champion of northern voices, committed to enabling people of all ages to engage with words, stories and conversations. He has a background in Youth Work, having worked in the community, schools, colleges and hostels in Blackpool and the North-West for over 13 years. His vision is to combine youth work values and approaches with the topic of literacy to engage and motivate people to access reading, writing and storytelling, removing barriers and enabling confidence. Nathan is proud of his northern roots… Read more »

Roy Calley’s Blackpool: A Complete Record is Published

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Roy Calley is a journalist who works for the BBC in Salford but was brought up in Blackpool, but now lives full-time in Nice, France. He joined the BBC in 1990 at Radio Lancashire, working as a sports journalist. Three years later he joined BBC GMR in Manchester and was the morning sports reporter on the breakfast programme, as well as presenting his own sports preview show every Friday night. He then moved to BBC Radio Leeds, where, despite being a Lancastrian, he reported on the fortunes of Yorkshire County Cricket Club for the local stations. That was followed by… Read more »

Roy Fuller Gets His First Poetry Book Published

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Roy Broadbent Fuller CBE (11 February 1912 – 27 September 1991) was an English poet and writer, best known for his contributions to poetry. Born in Failsworth, Lancashire, to Leopold Charles Fuller and Nellie Broadbent, his early life was shaped by a lower-middle-class background. His father, who had a difficult start in life as the illegitimate son of Minnie Augusta Fuller, worked his way up to become the works manager and later a director of a rubber-proofing mill in Hollinwood, Greater Manchester, before passing away in 1920. After his father’s death, Fuller was raised in Blackpool and attended Blackpool High… Read more »

Allen Clarke’s ‘Moorlands and Memories’ is First Published

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One hundred years ago, Allen Clarke, a former mill worker from Bolton, created a masterpiece titled Moorlands and Memories, subtitled Rambles and Rides in the Fair Places of Steam-Engine Land. The book was first published in 1920 by Tillotson’s of Bolton, the newspaper company behind The Bolton Evening News, which later became today’s Bolton News. Allen Clarke passed away in December 1935, having continued to walk and cycle right up to the end of his life. It is unfortunate that there is no memorial to him in Bolton, his hometown. However, Little Marton Mill, located on the outskirts of Blackpool,... Read more »

Sports Historian Gerry Wolstenholme Writes First Book

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Born in Blackpool, Gerry Wolstenholme is an author and sports historian from Blackpool who wrote about football and cricket. He penned his first book in 1992 and became a strong supporter of Blackpool F.C. He attended Northlands school between the ages of three and five, and then Devonshire Road School in Blackpool and Baines Grammar School in Poulton-le-Fylde. He saw an advertisement for Civil Service examinations and decided to take them. He passed, and moved to London to begin working at Her Majesty's Treasury in Whitehall. He was promoted, and worked in the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He... Read more »