When I was 13 my family moved from Derbyshire to the highest inhabited farmhouse in Northumberland. My dad was a clocksmith and people would climb to the top of the hill in Coalcleugh to bring him their clocks, automatons and Victorian music boxes to be repaired. He was known fondly as ‘John the Clock’.
I’ve had all kinds of jobs. I was a patternmaker at a foundry, before going into sales and then becoming a chimney sweep. I’ve cleaned chimneys in some far flung, beautiful and wild places.
As a child I was dismissed as a ‘stupid boy’ because I would not write things down – yet now I’m an award-winning poet. It turned out I was Dyslexic, but at the time nobody had heard of such a thing and so I spent my time trying to avoid putting anything down on paper.
All that changed after a chance encounter I had with a woman I met on a public bench in Tynemouth almost 30 years ago. I’d had a bad day at work and we happened to get chatting. It was a bit like a scene from the movie Forrest Gump! I was in my 20s and she was in her mid-50s and we had this entire afternoon and evening just talking about our lives. We even ordered pizza! That’s when I started writing poems. I didn’t think of the meeting as significant at the time but over the years I’ve found myself going back to it. I honestly think that chance meeting has made me the person I am today and it’s why I call myself The Unexpected Poet.
I started taking part in performance poetry and competing in poetry slams and currently hold the title of Centre of Britain Spoken Word Event Champion. I should have performed at the Royal Albert Hall this year after making it through to the finals of the Great North Slam but Covid-19 had other ideas unfortunately.
I tried living in the city but I’m a country lad at heart. I’ve settled in Haltwhistle with my wife and our children and it’s the perfect balance of countryside and convenience. We’ve a lovely three-bedroom Karbon Homes semi in a nice street. Even if we won the Lottery I wouldn’t want to move. It would be hard to better what we have here.
If you’re a regular to the riverside you might have seen some of my stone art. I’ve become known as River Banksy because of the sculptures I make along the water’s edge by balancing stones. I try to balance the most weird and wonderful stones on top of one another to create faces, animals, monsters and dinosaurs. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance and it’s a great way to meditate. I like the idea of bringing a smile to the faces of the people who find them. I started doing it during the pandemic as a way to engage young people. I thought if I could encourage them to join, they’d value their riverbank more and stop littering it. It seems to be working.
"I think community spirit is being reborn in towns like ours and it’s wonderful to see."
I recently joined the steering group of the Haltwhistle Community Fund which has been set up by Karbon Homes and Haltwhistle Community Partnership to fund new projects in the neighbourhood. I love seeing the positive ideas and projects people are coming up with. This growth is definitely a positive outcome from the pandemic. People have spent more time in the places they live these past 18 months. They’ve had the time to spot problems and work out how to fix them. We’ve all had the time to stop and really see things and work out what really matters.
To find out more about the Haltwhistle Community Fund, visit www.karbonhomes. co.uk/haltwhistle, or contact the Haltwhistle Community Partnership, email chairman@haltwhistle.org or phone 01434 321242. If you’d like to share your life story with readers, please get in touch by emailing communications@karbonhomes.co.uk or by calling 0808 164 0111.
When I was 13 my family moved from Derbyshire to the highest inhabited farmhouse in Northumberland. My dad was a clocksmith and people would climb to the top of the hill in Coalcleugh to bring him their clocks, automatons and Victorian music boxes to be repaired. He was known fondly as ‘John the Clock’.
I’ve had all kinds of jobs. I was a patternmaker at a foundry, before going into sales and then becoming a chimney sweep. I’ve cleaned chimneys in some far flung, beautiful and wild places.
As a child I was dismissed as a ‘stupid boy’ because I would not write things down – yet now I’m an award-winning poet. It turned out I was Dyslexic, but at the time nobody had heard of such a thing and so I spent my time trying to avoid putting anything down on paper.
All that changed after a chance encounter I had with a woman I met on a public bench in Tynemouth almost 30 years ago. I’d had a bad day at work and we happened to get chatting. It was a bit like a scene from the movie Forrest Gump! I was in my 20s and she was in her mid-50s and we had this entire afternoon and evening just talking about our lives. We even ordered pizza! That’s when I started writing poems. I didn’t think of the meeting as significant at the time but over the years I’ve found myself going back to it. I honestly think that chance meeting has made me the person I am today and it’s why I call myself The Unexpected Poet.
I started taking part in performance poetry and competing in poetry slams and currently hold the title of Centre of Britain Spoken Word Event Champion. I should have performed at the Royal Albert Hall this year after making it through to the finals of the Great North Slam but Covid-19 had other ideas unfortunately.
I tried living in the city but I’m a country lad at heart. I’ve settled in Haltwhistle with my wife and our children and it’s the perfect balance of countryside and convenience. We’ve a lovely three-bedroom Karbon Homes semi in a nice street. Even if we won the Lottery I wouldn’t want to move. It would be hard to better what we have here.
If you’re a regular to the riverside you might have seen some of my stone art. I’ve become known as River Banksy because of the sculptures I make along the water’s edge by balancing stones. I try to balance the most weird and wonderful stones on top of one another to create faces, animals, monsters and dinosaurs. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance and it’s a great way to meditate. I like the idea of bringing a smile to the faces of the people who find them. I started doing it during the pandemic as a way to engage young people. I thought if I could encourage them to join, they’d value their riverbank more and stop littering it. It seems to be working.
"I think community spirit is being reborn in towns like ours and it’s wonderful to see."
I recently joined the steering group of the Haltwhistle Community Fund which has been set up by Karbon Homes and Haltwhistle Community Partnership to fund new projects in the neighbourhood. I love seeing the positive ideas and projects people are coming up with. This growth is definitely a positive outcome from the pandemic. People have spent more time in the places they live these past 18 months. They’ve had the time to spot problems and work out how to fix them. We’ve all had the time to stop and really see things and work out what really matters.
To find out more about the Haltwhistle Community Fund, visit www.karbonhomes. co.uk/haltwhistle, or contact the Haltwhistle Community Partnership, email chairman@haltwhistle.org or phone 01434 321242. If you’d like to share your life story with readers, please get in touch by emailing communications@karbonhomes.co.uk or by calling 0808 164 0111.
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