Welcome to the trustee team! Tell us a bit about you…
Thank you! I am delighted to have been recently appointed as Treasurer for the Trust. As an accountant by profession, when I first heard at the AGM earlier in the year that the Trust may be on the look out for a new treasurer, it registered with me. With experience of being a treasurer and trustee elsewhere, when I subsequently saw the ad, I thought ‘go for it’. I enjoy being able to volunteer my skills with organisations whose aims strike a chord with me.
What about the Trust appealed to you? Were you already familiar with our work?
Having lived in Leeds all my working life, I have been aware of the Blue Plaques around the city for many years – they are a fantastic visible promotion of the Trust’s work. As someone very curious about where they live and a lover of walking, I first experienced the Trust’s work in 2022 on a guided walk of the Aire & Calder Navigation with one of our brilliant volunteer guides, Roderic. A super first impression! Having enjoyed more walks in the following years, and with my interest in Leeds’s history, heritage, architecture and climate change transition ever-growing and learning more about the Trust’s aspirations and activities through social media, I decided to become a member. A good move.
What do you enjoy doing when you are not at Wharf Street?
As I touched on earlier, I love walking and exploring. So you can often find me in my walking boots using my favourite app, OS maps, on the moors around Bradford as I am exploring the area in the city’s year of culture, or on my mission to complete the Thames Path in stages this year. Outside of walking, I’m heavily involved in the running of my local Scout Group – supporting young people to grow and experience opportunities is a passion of mine.
If you could invite three Blue Plaque recipients to a dinner party, who would they be and why, and in which of our buildings with a blue plaque would you host it?
This is a great question and very difficult to whittle down to three – but I am going for Mary Gawthorpe, Beryl Burton OBE and Dr Edith Pechey. Three pioneering women whose stories I find truly inspirational. I’d love to hear how they showed such resilience and determination. In terms of where we’d meet – I think I’d have to say the Central Station Wagon Hoist. In what might seem an odd location, it’s because I used to see the Wagon Hoist in its abandoned state from my office when I first worked in Leeds on Wellington Street. It intrigued me – what is it other than a pigeon roost and why is it surrounded (then) by retail units? Last year on another guided walk with the equally fabulous, Clifford, I got to see inside the Wagon Hoist, some 27 years later – and now home to a wonderful little museum. It was on this day I decided to become a member of the Trust.
Something you love about Leeds?
The people – funny and kind. The city’s size – not as sprawling as Manchester, but so much to see, to do, to learn about and to enjoy. I love its urban greenways and its waterways.
And lastly, something about Leeds you’d like to change?
I’d love to be able to get into Leeds more easily and more quickly by public transport. I live in Bramham now, and the once-an-hour bus service which takes almost an hour is not a compelling case for my neighbours to leave their cars at home.
