Author: Ed

Knee Surgeon Shameem Sampath Turns Business Idea Into Reality

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Shameem Sampath, a specialist at The Bluespot Knee Clinic, 32 Orchard Rd, Lytham, is preparing to bring his innovative physiotherapy device to market with the support of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). He credits the university’s hands-on business mentoring with providing essential guidance, describing himself as a “ship lost at sea” without it. For the past two years, Sampath has collaborated with UCLan’s business support team to develop Slider, a smart-technology product designed to assist patients undergoing knee and hip surgery in both pre-operative preparation and post-operative recovery. Drawing on his extensive experience in the field, he has created… Read more »

Stephen Barclay Becomes Commissioner of the Treasury

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Stephen Paul Barclay, born on 3 May 1972 in Lytham, is a British Conservative politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for North East Cambridgeshire since 2010. He held several ministerial roles under Prime Ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Rishi Sunak, including Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2023 to 2024. After the Conservative Party’s defeat in the 2024 general election, he briefly served as Shadow Environment Secretary before becoming Chair of the Finance Committee in December 2024. Barclay was raised in a family where his father worked in IT for 55 years,… Read more »

King Edward School’s Michael Platt Joins JP Morgan

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Michael Platt was born in Preston, Lancashire on 18 March 1968. He is a British billionaire hedge fund manager. He is the co-founder and managing director of BlueCrest Capital Management, Europe’s third-largest hedge-fund firm which he co-founded in 2000. He is Britain’s wealthiest hedge fund manager according to Forbes, with an estimated wealth of US$18 billion as of December 2024. Platt’s father taught civil engineering at the University of Manchester. Platt went to King Edward’s School in Lytham (now AKS). Platt studied civil engineering at Imperial College London, but after a year, switched to mathematics and economics at the London… Read more »

Joseph Delaney Gets an Agent

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Joseph Henry Delaney was an English author, best known for his children’s dark fantasy series, Spook’s, inspired by the folklore, history and geography of Lancashire. The series has been published in 30 countries, achieving sales of over 4.5 million copies. He was born on 25 July 1945 in Preston, Lancashire, the son of a labourer. He was the oldest of four children. As a child, Delaney had a recurring nightmare where he sat with his mother while she knitted, when, suddenly, a shadowy figure emerged from the coal cellar, picked him up, and carried him into darkness. Delaney attended Preston… Read more »

Blackpool Sixth Form College

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Blackpool Sixth Form College was established in 1971 as a sixth-form centre for Collegiate Grammar School before becoming an independent college in 1989. Today, Blackpool Sixth is recognised as an outstanding sixth-form college specialising in education for 16 to 19-year-olds. With a student body of just over 2,000, the college fosters a close-knit and supportive community. It prides itself on academic excellence, delivering high-quality teaching, learning, and pastoral support. Serving a broad area that includes Blackpool and the wider Fylde and Wyre districts, the college is known for its vibrant, inclusive, and welcoming environment. In December 2021, an Ofsted inspection… Read more »

Desmond Bagley Novel Gets Made into a Paul Newman Movie

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Desmond Bagley was born on 29 October 1923 in Kendal, Westmorland (now Cumbria), to John and Hannah Bagley. In the summer of 1935, when he was 12, his family relocated to Blackpool. Soon after the move, he left school and took on various jobs, including working as a printer’s assistant and in a factory. During the Second World War, he was employed in the aircraft industry, though his lifelong stutter initially exempted him from military conscription. Bagley became widely known as both a journalist and a novelist, earning a reputation for his gripping thrillers. Alongside fellow British writers such as…

Cleveleys based Michael Davies Publishes his Debut Novel

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Michael Davies is a versatile writer whose work spans stage, screen, radio, online platforms, and print. In October 2024, he released Thin Ice, the latest instalment in the Bill Kemp series, following Outback, which was published by HarperCollins in May 2023. The series features the protagonist Bill Kemp—described by Jeffrey Deaver as “part James Bond, part Philip Marlowe, and all hero”. Kemp originally appeared in Desmond Bagley’s posthumously published thriller Domino Island, which Michael was commissioned to complete in 2019. Outback serves as a spiritual sequel, honouring Bagley’s legacy in the centenary year of his birth. Desmond Bagley himself had…

Will Cribb Publishes his Memoirs

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Will Cribb has been living in Lytham for most of his life and decided to get Alan Whelan to help him write and publish his memoirs in 2015. This is his story: an idyllic childhood, his father’s early death, a mother’s indifference, a ten-year banishment by his stepfather to a boarding school thousands of miles away in the foothills of the Himalayas, and the shy boy’s efforts to cope with the school’s barefoot regime and tough bullies. However, this is no misery memoir. It is also about how the growing boy realises his dream of travelling to England — a… Read more »

Patrick Keiller, A Great Filmmaker Born in Blackpool

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Patrick Keiller is a filmmaker, writer, and lecturer, born in 1950 in Blackpool. He studied architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, before furthering his education at the Royal College of Art’s Department of Environmental Media as a postgraduate student in 1979. Over the years, he has combined academia with filmmaking, having taught architecture at the University of East London and fine art at Middlesex University. Keiller’s early films include Stonebridge Park (1981), Norwood (1983), The End (1986), Valtos (1987), and The Clouds (1989). These works are characterised by their use of subjective camera techniques and voice-over… Read more »

David Hogarth Launches His Second Book

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Local writer David Hogarth hosted a soft launch of his memoir recounting his life growing up in Blackpool. David Simper popped along to find out more. After a little bus confusion due to one company’s real time information system announcing a bus that doesn’t exist, I caught the alternative service 61 down to town and walked down to the Tea Amantes cafe and gallery, for local author David Hogarth’s book launch. The word had certainly got round for this one and by the time I got there, the place was packed. I recognised David as a regular at the excellent… Read more »