Before coming to MMU I worked as a reporter, producer and documentary maker, mostly for BBC Radio.

For 29 years I’ve worked across the UK, America, Europe and Africa making documentaries for BBC Radio 2, Radio 4, BBC World Service and Five Live, many of which have won awards.

After ten years in news – which took me from local radio to the BBC World Service – I moved to an independent production company specialising in music. There I made documentaries about civil rights in America, the music of the West Coast USA and the Mississippi, Irish migration, African independence, Northern Ireland’s Troubles – all using music as the way in to the stories.

I spent 15 years in live music, producing the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, the Cambridge festival, the Blackpool Lights switch-on and many Radio 2 outside broadcasts. I also freelanced on phone-in shows, as a media trainer and teaching radio production and news skills. I am a musician myself – a bass player – and In the late 1980s I recorded four sessions for John Peel’s Radio 1 show. Since then I have shared stages in many European cities with an eclectic gathering of names, from Sonic Youth to The Fall, from Screaming Lord Sutch to Spizz Energi.

I present a podcast series about key moments in Cold War sport (http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/theme/sport-in-the-cold-war/reso…), work with PhD students at Cambridge to increase the impact of their research and I have written two oral history accounts of the end of the Second World War; in Arctic Norway (Fire and Ice: the Nazis’ scorched earth campaign in Norway, The History Press 2014) and in Latvia (Blood in the Forest: the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket, Helion, 2017).

Academic and professional qualifications

1987 – 89: Professional journalism qualification NCTJ Proficiency: first time pass at Wrexham’s Plas Coch College.

1981 – 84: BA (Hons) 2:1 in English and Sociology from North Staffordshire Polytechnic, Stafford. Modern Studies joint honours.

Consultancy and advisory roles

I am a member of the steering committee of a multi-international multi-disciplinary Cold War sports history project aiming to reach wider audiences with academic work.

Government and industry links

2013: Sony silver award for Stuart Maconie’s 50-part documentary series ‘The People’s Songs’ telling British post-war social history through songs, for which I was a lead interviewer.

2009: Sony Bronze award for BBC 5-Live Stephen Nolan phone-in show - my interview with a paraplegic boy about the assisted suicide of 23 year old rugby player was among the highlights cited.

2008: Sony Gold award for a BBC documentary about British rhythm and blues band Dr Feelgood, presented by Mark Radcliffe.

2006: Sony Gold award for a BBC Radio Ballad about Sheffield’s steel industry, ‘The Song of Steel’.

2006: Sony Bronze award for BBC Radio Ballad about Northern Ireland’s Troubles, ‘Thirty Years of Conflict’

1996: Sony Gold award as part of BBC World Service ‘Newshour’ team winning ‘Best Current Affairs’ programme.

1995: Sony Gold award for new BBC Five Live show ‘Five Live Breakfast’.