Robert Hamilton is Northern Soul‘s Opera Correspondent and our man about town, Hamiltonic. He was born in Belfast more years ago than he cares to remember and has lived and worked in Manchester for 25 of those years. Robert lectures in World Cinema at Manchester Metropolitan University, where it has taken him a quarter of a century to climb to the bottom of his profession. He studied fine art but, on being told that he was not the world’s worst painter but “bloody close”, he decided to follow more profitable pursuits.

He has written for the late and lamented City Life as well as Artscribe, Aspects and Cut Magazine. He wrote an award-winning blog, Around the World in 80 Dinners, and is a founding member of the Chinese Film Forum, UK. He is currently developing a project dedicated to the culture of eyewear called The Society of the Spectacles. He can often be found in the Cornerhouse nursing many gin and tonics. A common term among the bar staff for a G&T is a ‘robert’. Oh, and he loves opera.

Chris Holmes

As Northern Soul‘s Football Correspondent, Chris Holmes spends too much time getting angry about things which don’t matter while skewering the many-headed beast forming the North’s Premier League clubs.

An ex-marketing manager, he recently jumped off the cliff of full-time employment and is now scrabbling in the foothills of freelancing as a content, copy and speechwriter.

In his native habitat, he can be found listening to obscure psych rock bands who look like that guy in the corner of every pub, an image which equally applies when Chris looks in the mirror.

Paul Hunter

Paul Hunter is Northern Soul’s North Yorkshire Photographer. A freelance landscape photographer based in North Yorkshire with a background in engineering, film, photography and video, he moved into landscape work six years ago and has been busy building a portfolio of local and national landscape imagery ever since. His love of the landscape began as a child with family holidays to Scotland where the dramatic landscapes of Glen Coe and Ben Nevis were imprinted in his mind.

He has exhibited locally and been published in local and national magazines. Paul aims to create positive emotions for viewers of his images, and provide a viewing platform for those who are not able to enjoy visiting the actual locations of his shots.

In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. Henry co-wrote and script-edited every episode of the multi-award winning Mrs Merton Show and the spin-off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm. He also co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family.

With Steve Coogan he co-wrote the BAFTA winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan’s Run, Tony Ferrino, Doctor Terrible, and all three of Coogan’s live tours and the film The Parole Officer. Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1999, Henry executive produced all, and script-edited many of the shows of its 17-and-a-half-year output during his tenure as MD. Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include Philomena, I believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Hunderby, Camping and Alan Partridge. 

Since retiring in April 2016, Henry has written and performed two BBC Radio 4 shows, A Normal Family and A Normal Life, combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son. He is currently writing a book on autism for Two Roads publishers, A Normal Family, drawing on his family experience. Henry performs poetry at literature festivals around the UK and has three poetry books out: Staring Directly at the Eclipse, Travelling Second Class Through Hope and Raining Upwards.

He was recently given a honorary doctorate of letter by Nottingham Trent University and has had a beer named after him in Nottingham.

Charlotte Oliver

Charlotte Oliver is a writer/poet who lives in Yorkshire. She regularly writes for a number of magazines including The Dalesman and Yorkshire Life. Charlotte is BBC Radio York’s Saturday Poet Laureate and her poems have been published widely, including with iambapoet, Dream Catcher, The Yorkshire Post, Green Teeth, Ice Floe, Black Bough, Cape, Spelt and Fevers of the Mind. She runs workshops and also accepts poetry commissions, most recently from the BBC and South Cliff Gardens Heritage Restoration Project, Scarborough. 

How To Be A Dressing Gown is Charlotte‘s debut poetry collection (published by Dreich) and her latest project is a radio ballad called The Dark Store, written with composer Sarah Dew and funded by the Arts Council England. Twitter: @charlotteolivr, IG: charlotteoliverpoet, website: www.charlotteoliver.com

Lewis Palmer

Lewis Palmer is a photographer based in Newcastle upon Tyne with varied interests including commercial, event and concert photography. His photography blog and favourite images are available on his website (www.lewispalmerphotography.co.uk).

He is also an avid fan of Instagram. @lewispalmerphoto

Chris Park

Chris Park has been writing for Northern Soul for five years and in that time he has sat in Vera Duckworth’s living room and propped up the bar in The Woolpack, met Postman Pat and discovered a love of Victorian gangs. But his finest moment was reporting on Bet Lynch opening a bathroom showroom in B&Q. Who knows what the future will hold?

Chris also writes for www.canal-st.co.uk and, after graduating with a MA in Television and Radio Scriptwriting from Salford University, is now attempting his first novel as well as a bit of blogging on the side.

Chris enjoys all things cultural from theatre to gigs to reading and is trying to love gardening but it is proving elusive. @parkslifeblog 

Wendy Pratt was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1978. Wendy now lives just outside Filey. She studied Biomedical Science at Hull University and worked as a microbiologist at the local NHS hospital for some years. She completed a BA in English Literature with the Open University in 2014.

Wendy started trying to fashion a career out of her writing in 2008 and has since had her poetry published in many journals and magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Pennine Platform, Prole, Envoi, Other Poetry, Acumen, The Frogmore Papers and The English Chicago Review. Wendy’s first poetry pamphlet, Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare, was published by Prolebooks in 2011 and was well received, being reviewed favourably in the Times Literary Supplement. The collection centred on the loss of Wendy and her husband’s baby daughter who died during an emergency C-section in April 2010. Her first full size collection, Museum Pieces, is also published by Prolebooks. It was launched in January 2014. The collection has already had a number of positive reviews. The concept of the collection is that of a museum where memories, events, objects, thoughts are touchstones for something deeper; the poems are artefacts to be observed.

You can find out more about Wendy on her website: wendypratt.com

Sara Riccardi

Sara is one of Northern Soul’s visual arts contributors. A passionate art historian from Rome, she’s now found her second home in the heart of Manchester.

A keen communicator, Sara is deeply committed to sharing art, culture and history with as wide a public as possible. Founder of Art Across, she promotes visual arts from the past and present in interactive and unexpected ways. Devoted to her passion, Sara lends her enthusiasm and love for the arts to any new venture – she’s collaborated with a variety of brilliant artists including Steven Heaton, Nicola Dale, Christopher Cook, Halima Cassell and many more.

Currently pursuing her passion through PhD research at MMU, Sara is thrilled to participate in Manchester’s lively art scene; from contrasting architectural styles to the warm welcoming smiles of its people, the city has meant more for her than she ever imagined. Female entrepreneur, curator, performer, horse lover, wellbeing fanatic and coffee obsessed, she’s still working on her contradictory relationship with British rain.

Follow Sara on Instagram: @sara_artacross

Rachael Richards 

Alfred Searls

Alfred Searls was born, bred and buttered in the city of Manchester. After a grimly successful career in PR and marketing, which left him with a nagging suspicion he was becoming a character in a Kafka novel, he branched out into writing things he actually wanted to write. Consequently, he now writes for Northern Soul on a range of subjects from literature and music to architecture and the theatre.

Elsewhere his work has been published by The Catholic Herald, in both the UK and the US, and his short stories have been published in Metonym Literary Journal, Cinder Quarterly Journal, Jupiter Magazine, Dash Literary Journal, The Antonym Magazine and The Mallard.   

He has also twice been a judge in the Northern Soul Awards in recent years, celebrating cultural and artistic excellence in the North of England, and a judge in the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction, run by Comma Press and the University of Central Lancashire.

Steve Slack

Steve Slack writes about museums, galleries and days out – anything with a tea room or a gift shop. He works as a writer and consultant in built and cultural heritage. He grew up in Manchester and now lives in the city centre. Steve blogs cultural stuff at steveslack.co.uk; tweets as @steveslack and instagrams museum nonsense at @museumofsteve.

Bethany Smith

Bethany Smith is a trainee journalist and spare time musician. With a foundation degree in English and a background in music performance and songwriting, she loves sad songs, lyricism, and clever wording – especially witty one-liners. An avid believer in equality and inclusivity, she hopes to forge a career that can make a difference. She is currently entering her final year of a Multimedia Journalism course at the University of Salford.

You can keep up with her work via Twitter @bethh_journo and Instagram @itsbethh_x

Jack Stocker

A freelance copywriter, Jack Stocker was born and raised in a small town in Surrey. He moved up North to study journalism and broadcasting at Salford University, and after that there was literally no going back (the train ticket was a single).

Since then, he has taken up permanent residence as – among other things – a reviewer for Take One, as well as writing and producing short films and radio dramas. Jack has been writing creatively since the age of 13 – most of his fiction is of the fantasy and horror variety, much like the books that fill his shelves at home. You can read some of it, as well as his other endeavours, on his personal website.

Jack’s other hobbies include reviewing video games, fruitlessly learning to play the guitar, and trying to remember why he came upstairs.

http://jack–stocker.wix.com/jackstocker

Drew Tosh

In a career that can only be described as ‘all over the place’, Drew Tosh has had a crack at many things, from PR to puppetry, care homes to charity fundraising. After a 15-year career in theatre/arts marketing and PR in Scotland, promoting everything from Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Andy Warhol exhibitions to the World Pipe Band Championships and the Great Scottish Run, Drew upped sticks for Manchester.

As well as Northern Soul, Drew has written for several other titles and is a regular panellist on BBC Radio Manchester. He has written two plays which have been performed, Peg & Bessie and Physical, a novel (in a state of endless editing) and is currently having a crack at a musical.

Drew believes that Kate Bush should be made Queen, macaroni cheese should be available on the NHS and that a bowl of trifle heals all. 

Chris Wallis

Chris Wallis is Northern Soul‘s Theatre Editor. He has been a radio drama producer for 25 years, a theatre director for 40 years, and a foodie fan for a lot longer than that. Born in Aberdeen and brought up in Hounslow, he went to Liverpool University in the late 60s in search of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Failing to find the first, he taught himself to cook from Mastering The Art Of French Cooking by Beck, Bertholle and Child – a manual he thinks is yet to be surpassed and is still in print. In fact, it’s probably the only cookery book to have had a film made about it (Julia and Julia). The second and third have provided him with stories ever after. Thanks to the BBC, he moved to Manchester in 1991 and has been here ever since, but he commutes to London and a lot of his restaurant experience is drawn from there. To see what Chris does for a living, go to www.watershedtheatre.com.

Lisa Wood

More than two decades ago, Lisa Wood left the sleepy town of Leek for the bright lights of Manchester and has never looked back. She now sees herself as an adopted Mancunian. After fuelling her inner creative at Salford University, Lisa forged an interesting and varied career in the world of PR and marketing and had a ball spending eight years building the global brand for MediaCityUK, where she fought off the national tabloids on a daily basis with their ‘North bashing’ and organised high-profile events including the official opening with The Queen.

She now juggles family life with looking after the PR for a digital health company and supporting her husband in building his animation business. Lisa lives in Timperley with her husband and young daughter, Sienna, and when not at work she can either be found in a spin studio, sweating in a hot yoga class, listening to a good podcast, baking or sharing details of her love of interiors on Instagram. She loves the great outdoors and often spends weekends exploring what’s on her doorstep or, if feeling lazy, socialising with friends over a good glass of wine. Lisa is also an avid theatre-goer and has been known to ‘tread the boards’ in a number of amateur productions.

Lizzie Wood