“This page tells you more about us as people as much as our professional skills and backgrounds, including 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 has also been a Member of Somerset CCC. Her membership of all County Clubs has sadly now ended due to her MS.
Alison is a member of her local Church Choir at St Helen’s, Ainderby Steeple, in the Benefice of the Lower Swale. Since 2018, she has been a member of Rock Choir based in Northallerton, and from 2024, a member of Yorkshire Voices choir also 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 was proud to 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. Sadly, Alison’s regular RDA sessions have now had to end because of her MS.
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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. 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. He’s due for a further relicensing in the Autumn of 2026.
Paul’s major sporting interest has always been cricket, which began with his school playing days and a love of the Somerset County Cricket Club in his youth. Whilst naturally retaining his strong interest in and support for the county of his birth, once living in Yorkshire, Paul quickly became a Member of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, although this has now ended. Paul has also been a Gold Member of Durham CCC and a Member of his beloved Somerset CCC. However, because of Alison’s MS, Paul has also sadly had to end his County cricket memberships, although he continues to have an annual trip to Somerset for a full 4-day Championship match each Summer.
Paul’s also a keen follower of Rugby Union.
He’s a Member of Bedale Golf Club (Rabbits section) and of Romanby Golf Club’s Driving Range.
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 in the countryside. Alison’s MS has sadly brought an end to their walking together and to their visits to Durham Cricket at Riverside.
Together in earlier years before MS took hold, 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.
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 a Test Match 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, over the pre-MS years, 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 many holidays to the Greek Islands, rural France (especially the Loire Valley and the Pink Granite coast of Brittany), alongside their deep affection for the rural areas of Northumberland and the West Country.
Latterly, with MS precluding many holiday opportunities, they took to cruising. Four cruises were possible before MS ended these too – firstly to the Canary Islands, then to the islands of the Mediterranean, another to the Norwegian Fjords, and their final cruise in 2024 was to Iceland.
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