More About Us

Because we want you to know more about us as people as much as our professional skills and backgrounds, this section  includes some of the personal interests and involvement we have in community affairs.”

Alison: Alison’s personal interests beyond her professional career have included her passion for cricket: living in a village which is equidistant from the Headingley and Chester le Street cricket grounds, she’s been a Full Member of Yorkshire County Cricket Club as well as a ‘Gold Member’ of Durham County Cricket Club (and she’s a fan of Cricket Australia since it was Australia which first led to her real interest in the great game – more on Australia below). She remains a Gold Member of Durham CCC and is now a Member of Somerset CCC (her membership of YCCC has ended).

Alison is a member of her local Church Choir at St Helen’s, Ainderby Steeple in the Benefice of the Lower Swale; and in 2018 she joined the Rock Choir based in Northallerton.

From  2009-2012 she served as Secretary to the village “Parish Committee” for Thrintoft.

She was an active member of Stamfordham Young Farmers Club, including becoming its Chairman, and was selected to represent England in an overseas exchange trip to Sweden, where she studied further and higher education routes into agriculture.

She remains a lover of the countryside, cows and cats, and is proud to still be able to fulfil a childhood dream of learning to ride, through Riding for the Disabled (with whom she passed the first assessments in 2014 and won her heat at Middlesbrough to qualify for the 2014 finals at Hartpury College in Gloucester in the ‘Countryside Challenge’, finishing a creditable 12th in her class!).  She qualified again for the 2019 finals. Alison’s regular RDA sessions at the Middlesbrough “Unicorn Centre” are the highlight of her week.

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Paul: Paul’s voluntary and community work included serving for six years as Chairman of the local Village Parish Committee for Thrintoft, before handing over the chairmanship in May 2009.  In June 2012 Paul became Chairman once more – and this continues.

In 1998 he was appointed as a Trustee on the Board of North Yorkshire Youth Ltd – an excellent youth charity and outdoor education centre based at Carlton Lodge near Thirsk. In 2000 he was elected Chairman of its Board and, after 10 years in this position, Paul stood down and left the Board in 2010. In October 2013 Paul was elected as a Vice-President of North Yorkshire Youth.

Paul was privileged to serve since 2001 as a member of the Governing Body of the Dales School, an outstanding special school for 5-19-year-olds with profound and multiple learning difficulties in North Yorkshire. After a spell as Vice-Chairman, he was elected Chairman of the Governors in  October 2009. However, with increasing national commitments preventing Paul from devoting sufficient time to the role, he reverted in 2011 to serving as Vice-Chairman. In October 2013 Paul was reappointed as Chairman of the Governing Body. On 3rd July 2019, Paul retired from the Governing Body.

Paul also served a four-year spell (2005-9) as a Governor of Northallerton College – which was then, before the reorganisation, a 14+ community college, in the county town of North Yorkshire.

In 2002-4, he returned to part-time study, completing the Certificate of Higher Education in Christian Studies at York St. John College and the University of Leeds. As a trained and Licensed Lay Minister in the (now renamed) Leeds Diocese of the Church of England, Paul is regularly involved in preparing, leading and assisting with a range of church services most weekends in the Benefice of the Lower Swale – and in taking home communion and ministering to housebound parishioners. He was relicensed in 2021 with “permission to officiate” (for a further 5-year period) by the Bishop of Leeds.

Paul’s major sporting interest has always been cricket – which began with his school playing days and a love of Somerset County Cricket Club in his youth. Whilst naturally retaining his strong interest in and support for his county of birth, once living in Yorkshire Paul quickly became a Full Member of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, although this has now ended. Paul is a Gold Member of Durham CCC and is also a Member of his beloved Somerset CCC.

Additionally, he’s a keen follower of Rugby Union; and is a Member of Bedale Golf Club.

He continues to enjoy walking the Dales & Moors of Yorkshire, and farther afield – having walked most of Hadrian’s Wall in 2016-7 in Northumberland.

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Alison and Paul have always enjoyed walking and the countryside. Alison’s MS has, since 2007, increasingly restricted her mobility, but they have been able to spend more time together watching their beloved cricket. Together in earlier years, they were able to share a true affection for the southern hemisphere, which began with a love for Australia (including three trips in the period 2003-9), to which they added South Africa twice in 2006 and 2009.

Then in January 2011, Paul & Alison travelled to New Zealand to tour the simply stunning South Island, visit Auckland in the North and spend time in the capital, Wellington. They also took in time at Wellington’s Basin Reserve cricket ground before travelling on to attend two ODI cricket fixtures at Hobart (Tasmania)  & Adelaide on their return journey home.

In January 2013 they returned to Western Australia, travelled up to Darwin NT, and then across to New Zealand again (spending more time on the North Island this time).

Their shared passion for cricket enabled them to visit many lovely grounds in the southern hemisphere. Nestling under Table Mountain, Newlands in Cape Town, South Africa – and the Adelaide Oval in South Australia – are their favourite cricket grounds.

They have also enjoyed rural France (especially the Loire Valley and the Pink Granite coast of Brittany) alongside their continued affection for the rural areas of Northumberland, North Yorkshire and the West Country.

Latterly, with MS precluding many holiday opportunities, they have taken to cruising. So far they’ve been on three cruises – 1 to the Canary Islands, another to islands of the Mediterranean, and most recently to the Norwegian Fjords.

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Historical Footnote (which we post for interest, and to celebrate these young South Africans):

In 2009 Paul and Alison became associated with the Meerlust Foundation in South Africa which merged in 2010 with the Sustainability Institute’s “Changes Youth” programme at Lynedoch near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. Paul and Alison’s heartfelt ambition has been to encourage disadvantaged teenaged black children there to follow and play cricket, as a result of which it was splendid for them to be able to report that Yorkshire CCC’s charitable foundation donated Kwik Cricket kits to the “Changes Youth” in Spring 2010 to enable their young teenagers to begin to learn the game (please click here to view a brief introduction to the South African charity).