Latest News
Catch up with all the latest news and developments involving our alumni.
We want to tell the world about your triumphs, celebrate your success, promote your latest endeavours and keep in touch.
So if you have something to tell us please contact us – by email s.ward@bradfordcollege.ac.uk, or telephone Shelagh Ward on 01274 433327.
This week, as the 70th anniversary of the rescue of allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk is commemorated, we spoke to award winning author/ illustrator and 175 Hero, Mick Manning about his latest book, My Uncle’s Dunkirk. The book derives from Mick’s inheritance of some wartime artefacts preserved but unspoken about by his Uncle Gil, and Mick and his wife, Brita Granström, have used their unique gifts to create a book that speaks to children of our shared cultural legacy.
Mick explained, “My Uncle was from Lewisham and that's where he joined up as a royal artillery engineer in 1937 and found himself on the beaches of Dunkirk three years later.
After the war he never talked about it, not even to his wife. He lived by the seaside all his working life, where he was a telephone engineer. In the 1960's when I was a boy, we would go every summer for holidays. They were happy times. On one visit, when I was about eight, I found a box of World War Two history magazines in their spare room where I slept. I read these, finding out for myself about Dunkirk and the tragedy my uncle had survived.When my uncle died in the 1990's my auntie found a plastic bag of ephemera in his tool shed: his army pay book, some cigarette picture cards, tickets and telegrams; and she gave them to me.He'd never said anything about his war experiences other than he had been at Dunkirk, even to her – yet he had kept this packet of assorted wartime ephemera safe for 50 years.
I wanted to make a book about him, the seductive ephemera of old cig cards and paybooks - and most of all his reluctance to talk about what he had been through; a quiet reflective book that would contrast with the chatty RAF war memories of my father in Tail-End Charlie.
The beaches where I built sandcastles and the French beaches where my uncle waited for rescue became part of the same story, a story I have called My Uncle's Dunkirk. The images flip between holiday beach scenes and Dunkirk which reinforces the contrast between war and peace and past and present (well the 1940s and the 1960s). This gives a child a safe place on 
every other page and a war experience alternately, so they can turn from safety to distress when they feel ready, and retreat to the beach holiday if it gets too tough.
every other page and a war experience alternately, so they can turn from safety to distress when they feel ready, and retreat to the beach holiday if it gets too tough.Mick and Brita staged a live audio visual performance at The Spoken Word Festival at the Maltings Theatre in Berwick upon Tweed on 1st May and will be appearing at the Imperial War Museum on 31st May and 1st June. Futher dates will be announced soon.
The book is on sale in book stores and online.
Summer 2010 is proving to be a momentous time for Akmal Shaukat, who is holding his first exhibition and moving to Milan to work with top designers (we are sworn to secrecy about their identity - but we are very impressed!) We caught up with the former model and talented artist before he packed his bags.“My exhibition, A journey into wonderland from an attic in Manningham, runs from 2nd July to 3rd September at The Love Apple. I want to take the exhibition to Milan later but it’s nice to have my first solo show close to home and to College where I studied for five years. I spent two years on the National Diploma in Graphic Design course, which was a real head turner. I am so grateful to Jayne Delaney for getting me to knuckle down to hard work and teaching me so much before I did the BA (Hons) Graphic Media Communications degree, where I achieved first class honours. 
I started modelling when I was about fourteen and did it for nine years. I continued after I graduated in 2008, but I left modelling to concentrate on preparing for my exhibition, though the travelling and the people I met as a model inspire my work now. One of my close friends passed away in 2009 and she encouraged me to pursue my artistic goals.
My work is a mix of abstract and original. I tend to use photography, mixed media and a bit of everything. It is inspired by technology and each illustration contains a deeper meaning within it. The psychedelic image is based on exotic birds. The exhibition showcases fashion, design, graphic design and fashion illustration.
The exhibition title has baffled a few people but it reflects my roots, which I will never forget. I travelled all over the world but my morals and attitudes are rooted in my upbringing with my 
parents. I live with my mother and father and I had a studio in the attic where I have always done my work. Whenever I have been anywhere in England people are surprised by my work when they know I came from Manningham, as they have heard the negative media reporting and have preconceptions. But there is more to Manningham than meets the eye. My work is open to all cultures and is very international in its focus. I am currently working on my next exhibition which will be based on Greek and Roman myths and looking at the nature of patriarchal society.
parents. I live with my mother and father and I had a studio in the attic where I have always done my work. Whenever I have been anywhere in England people are surprised by my work when they know I came from Manningham, as they have heard the negative media reporting and have preconceptions. But there is more to Manningham than meets the eye. My work is open to all cultures and is very international in its focus. I am currently working on my next exhibition which will be based on Greek and Roman myths and looking at the nature of patriarchal society.I am now moving to Milan, which has always been my dream. I have modelled there and it has always been an inspiration in terms of the fashion design side of illustration. I am going to be working with top international designers and garment technicians, working on fashion design and illustration.”
Although Akmal is moving to Milan in June, he is returning to Bradford to attend the opening of his exhibition. He will be attending the opening between and 8 and 10pm on Friday 2nd July.
When we were selecting our 175 Heroes we included Ben as a rising star – both for his acting prowess and his work at the National Media Museum. Given Ben’s talent and approach to his work, it was inevitable that he would progress in his parallel careers on stage and in the Museum. We caught up with him to discover his latest news.
Although he is only 26, Ben is now Film Festival Producer and is a veteran of over fifty stage productions. “I have more responsibility at work now. I basically events manage the festivals, looking after guests, ensuring films have arrived, managing the budgets (the last one for Bradford International Film Festival was in excess of £100, 000), ensuring that staff are briefed and that events run smoothly. I wouldn’t necessarily programme, but I do work a lot with Deb Singleton for the Animation Festival and Tony Earnshaw for the International.”Ben was far too busy to think about a degree and he is conscious that his job would be the envy of many top graduates. “I would never have imagined that I would be in this position. I simply came here to be a part of it. Fortunately people here look at experience and passion as opposed to what’s on paper. My job is quite a logistical but also very people based.” Ben moves easily in glittering circles these days. He now considers John Hurt a friend, recalls Michael Palin was a real treat and that Imelda Staunton was very enthusiastic about Paper Zoo Theatre Company.
“I eat, sleep and breathe film and theatre. There’s pretty much nothing else in my life. If I am not at the Museum or attending another film festival or screening, I am rehearsing, learning lines, reading a script or performing. My social life is rehearsing but the fun you have with a group of actors is better than anything you ca have with someone else.”
Although he is a founder member of Paper Zoo Theatre Company and is kept pretty busy with this, he is still involved in other productions. His range and openness to different genres is clear from his recent involvement in five productions back to back. “I was in Funny Men for Icabod; touring the two Paper Zoo Productions of 1984 and Animal Farm; playing the Beast in Beauty and the Beast for Halifax Operatic Society and appearing in Happily Ever After for Snowgoose. Orwell to Disney sounds a bit unlikely but it was a great opportunity.”Ben is a compelling performer but he is not just attracted by being centre stage. As a genuine stage and movie buff he just finds any opportunity to get involved irresistible. He recently had a whale of a time in a walk on part as a Nazi when the West End production of The Sound of Music tour stopped at the Alhambra, and along with his Media Museum colleague, Tony Earnshaw, spent three days on location as a film extra on the forthcoming movie The King’s Speech.
Ben and his fellow members of Paper Zoo are currently working on 2020 Vision, a devised piece to take to the Edinburgh Fringe in August and then tour. “It is set in a call centre in 2020. We have all worked in a call centre at some point during our lives and so we can all bring something to it. We are currently developing all the different characters and their personality traits. We want to get across the whole nastiness of corporate life, which we think will be more extreme and regimented in another decade. The twist in the tale is a world disaster and how each character reacts to each other and themselves in these changed circumstances. When Paper Zoo took Valentines to the Edinburgh Fringe it was the best ten days of my life, so I can’t wait. It truly is the best festival in the world.”
Gifted actor Rafi Raja has been in demand since he completed his Diploma in Performing Arts in July 2009. He has been enhancing his cv with varied roles, filming sequences for the BBC documentary The Muslim Tommies and most recently, appearing in a tour of Alice Bartlett’s Not in My Name. Now he has been signed up by an agent we can expect to see lots more of Rafi on stage and screen.
This is the fifth time that Not in My Name, the acclaimed play by writer/director Alice Bartlett, has toured and Rafi has relished the challenge of bringing such powerful material to audiences of young people and community groups to encourage open discussions about terrorism and extremism.Rafi explained, “The play is set in Liverpool in 2001. The scenario is imagined but all the dialogue in the play is genuine, taken from research with real people by the writer. It begins on a Saturday morning when people are all shopping, meeting friends and getting on together. Suddenly a bomb goes off and it shatters lives and splinters what had been a peaceful multicultural area. The play explores how the characters’ lives change through injuries, bereavement and racism.
I play Hassan, the younger brother of the suicide bomber. His brother had wanted to play for Liverpool but after his footballing ambitions are crushed he falls under the influence of a guy he meets in the Islamic Society who persuades him that Islam demands jihad, when it is really about peace. This wrong message has terrible consequences for everyone. Although his family were not involved they are questioned, detained and branded as terrorists. You see how the family have to deal with this label and how racism starts in the neighbourhood. As well as Hassan, I also play a Police Community Support Officer who has to reassure the public while confronting their mistrust about him because he is Asian. The play is very contemporary and it really makes you realise how long it takes to overcome this type of situation, as individuals and as communities.The audience response in Liverpool and Runcorn has been fantastic. One night an agent was in the audience and she said she wanted to represent me. The play finishes on 27th February and then my agent is paying for me to have singing and dialect coaching at the Acting Centre in Manchester so I will continue to build my skills while she is sending me to auditions.”
As young graduates in the late 1960s, Doug Binder and Dudley Edwards were at the centre of pop culture, consorting with the celebrities who lapped up psychedelic designs from their trendy design collective Binder Edwards Vaughan (BEV).Doug recalls various colourful episodes from their successful partnership and their turbulent relationship with the late Dave Vaughan in his recent book, Full Circle.
Decades after they painted cars, furniture and murals together and they have both enjoyed successful artistic careers, Doug and Dudley’s friendship has continued undiminished, as has their passion for painting.
The fruits of this can be seen in two exhibitions which brighten the winter gloom.
Doug has mounted a major retrospective, Full Circle at the Yorkshire Craft Centre, which runs from 15th January to 17th February; while Dudley is staging Dudley Edwards: A work in progress at Dean Clough Galleries in Halifax from February 6th to March 7th 2010.
Dudley has included some older work in this show but “the majority has been painted in the last twelve months.” Although the commercial commissions for the bespoke rugs he designs with his wife Madeleine intrude on his painting time, Dudley devotes every spare moment to his painting which he regards as his “first love.”
175 Hero Mick Manning is used to winning awards for the books he co-authors and illustrates with his wife, Brita Granström. But the recent announcements that their book Tail-End Charlie has been shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2010 and the prestigious Carnegie Medal are particularly special.
This will be the tenth year of these influential awards given by Booktrust and Blue Peter and they consider hundreds of titles each year in their quest to determine the very best children’s authors, most creative illustrators and outstanding children’s reads. So being selected as one of the final three books is a great recommendation and an enormous achievement. In Mick’s case this means much more as the book is his personal tribute to his father, who served as a member of 180 Squadron during WWII and survived the war but died at only 52 just before Mick started at Bradford College.
Mick’s commitment to bringing his father’s memories to life to educate a new generation about WWII has meant seven years of detailed research and so it is fitting that the book has been chosen in the nominated in the ‘Best Book With Facts’ category. The winners will be selected by children and announced in the Spring.The prospect of a Carnegie Medal, awarded annually to the author of the outstanding children's book provides major recognition for Tail-End Charlie. Again the winner will not be announced until next year, but Mick says, "It's fantastic news. However it is a very, very, long list of nominations! But we're happy to be nominees; we'll settle for that." Everyone at Bradford College has fingers crossed for a double celebration in 2010.
Mick is currently exhibiting some of his work in a show called Mark Hearld and Friends at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh. He explains “Mark was a student of mine when I ran the Glasgow School of Art illustration course (as was recent Iraq war artist Xavier Pick.) Later I worked with Mark again at the RCA when I was Natural History Illustration course advisor for a while and he was an MA student, so it is nice that he’s he's invited me into this group show.”The two pictures you can see here, Gannets and I Love These Animals, were both done on location in North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.
175 Hero, Darren Baker, returned to Bradford College at the end of October to hang his paintings for his latest exhibition, which opens at the Yorkshire Craft Centre on Monday 2nd November.Standing in the empty gallery gave Darren a welcome respite from the frenzy of activity that he has been caught up in during recent weeks.
On a personal note, Darren married Abigail in September and spent two weeks on honeymoon in the Italian Lakes and Venice. He promises that we shall see some paintings of the places he visited at a later date, but so far he hasn’t had chance to translate inspiration to canvas, as he has been so busy with other commitments.
Darren is very conscious of being personally blessed with a special gift and is very generous in supporting a number of charities to help those less fortunate. He was one of the celebrity donors offering their services for a special ‘money can’t buy’ auction to raise money to build a new children’s hospital in Manchester at a star studded event held on 22nd October. Darren’s lot, a commission portrait, was won by TV Dragon Theo Paphitis who bid £15,000, so Darren will be entering his ‘Den’ to paint him very soon.On 24th October Darren was a special guest at the Commonwealth Sports Awards, held at the Royal Armouries in Leeds in his role as Olympic 2012 artist.
Darren has also had a pastel selected for the prestigious ING Discerning Eye exhibition which will be held at the Mall Galleries in London later in November. This is a show of smaller pieces chosen by six major players in the art world: two artists, two collectors and two critics. Darren’s piece, Bird's Nest, was selected by the eminent critic, Julius Bryant, of the V&A Museum.
175 Hero, Balbir Panesar, continues to amass awards as an outstanding businessman and role model for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Following his AOC gold award this summer, he was recognised by the Yorkshire Awards with the Lifetime Achievement Award on 16th October. Typifying Balbir’s commitment to education and genuine interest in young people entering his industry, when the BBC made a short film about each of the winners to be shown at the glittering event in Leeds and on Look North, Balbir chose to be filmed at our Trinity Green building, with the students training to follow in his footsteps.
At the top-secret filming, Balbir disclosed that he had also received an Institute of Directors Judges Special Award for Yorkshire & Humberside on the 11th September, and laughed that he kept some of his awards at work to reduce dusting at home. 
When the award was formally announced, College Principal, Michele Sutton OBE sent Balbir a congratulatory message, joking “you are going to need a bigger mantelpiece to put them all on! We are delighted that your achievements have been recognised in this way by the business community and that you chose Bradford College as a backdrop in your video. You are truly a great ambassador for the College and for Bradford.”You can see the film below – the BBC used some stills from our archive to create this film.
When best selling author and 175 Hero, Frances McNeil told us she had ‘"turned to crime" we were naturally concerned. We were relieved to hear that hat this wasn’t a descent into law-breaking but merely her trying her accomplished hand as a crime writer.Frances has just published the first a new series of locally based crime novels, Dying in the Wool, under the pseudonym Frances Brody.
She explained, “As I am writing for a different genre I thought I was appropriate to adopt a crime pseudonym. It is set in the period of the classic detective story and I tried to evoke that feel.My detective, Kate Shackleton, a First World War widow, is asked by a friend to investigate the disappearance of her millionaire mill owner father.
The story is set in 1922, in the fictional mill village of Bridgehead, which is on the outskirts of Bradford, in the Bingley/ Cottingley direction.I did lots of local research at Bradford Industrial Museum and the Colour Experience to ensure the details were right. I found out lots about dyeing and made the connection between the pitric acid used in dyes being used in explosives and I married my action up to various local events.”
This attention to detail has been appreciated by critics. The Independent’s Reviewer reckoned “Brody's winning tale of textile industry shenanigans is shot through with local colour.”
Dying in the Wool was published by Piaktus in October 2009. It would be a crime not to read it.
Within months of completing her degree, BA (Hons) Contemporary Surface Design & Textiles graduate, Fiona Wilson is already making a name for herself and moving closer to her ambitions.Fiona attracted some very positive attention at New Designers held at the Business Design Centre in London in July. “The College took a large stand and we had such a busy week. New Designers was a really good starting point for me. I attended a talk by the Society of Designer Craftsmen and applied to join them. They assessed my work and I have now been accepted as Licentiate of Merit, Society of Designer Craftsmen. My merit status means I have been invited to exhibit with them at the Mall Gallery in January. This is very prestigious and I will have the opportunity to exhibit with them on a regular basis.
I was also picked to be in the graduate showcase at the Quilt Festival at the NEC in Birmingham in August, where I was given a free stand for four days. The exhibition was really quite contemporary and everyone was so interested in my work and the techniques I was using.I am also going to be featured in the November/December issue of Embroidery, the magazine of the Embroiderer’s Guild, after Jo Hall, the editor, saw my work at New Designers.
Earlier this year Fiona had been selected for the final exhibition stage of the influential Henry Foyle Trust Award for Stitched Textiles “I had spent so much time preparing for New Designers that I decided my best chance of a prize in the final in August was to concentrate my efforts on the sketchbook prize. I carried on with my theme of freedom to roam that I had used in the earlier stage of the competition and my sketchbook concertinaed out to reveal a combination of stitch and mark making. I was so thrilled to win and for Alice Kettle to tell me 
that she loved my sketchbook, which meant as much to me as the prize of £250, although the money will be very useful to help me while I do my MA.
that she loved my sketchbook, which meant as much to me as the prize of £250, although the money will be very useful to help me while I do my MA.Fiona has just commenced the MA In Textiles in Manchester. Before she had even started her course, she picked up four weeks teaching second and third year undergraduates at Huddersfield University. “I really want to be self-employed as a designer artist and do some part-time teaching. When you leave College and are faced with having to make this happen it can be a bit daunting. But my experience has been so positive from the outset. I would tell anyone else in my shoes, ‘Don’t be scared.’ Just get out there.”
