Who am I?

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I was born on 4 July 1943, and work as a freelance photographer, writer and broadcaster.  For more information about the Hart-Davis family see www.hd.org  I live in Devon with my wife, psychologist Sue Blackmore. Before presenting, I spent five years in publishing and 17 years at Yorkshire Television, as researcher and then producer of such series as Scientific Eye and Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers. I am a member of societies as diverse as the British Toilet Association, the Bureau of Freelance Photographers, the Newcomen Society, and The Society of Dyers and Colourists; and a Patron of many more, from the Brede Steam Engine Society and the Ellenroad Steam Mill Engine to the Association of Lighthouse Keepers and the Bognor Birdman. See my Organizations page for the full list.

I have collected fourteen honorary doctorates, a Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering for the Public Promotion of Engineering, the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation Medal from the Institution of Incorporated Engineers, and the 1999 Gerald Frewer memorial trophy of the Council of Engineering Designers.

I am a keen supporter of several charities, including Wateraid and Practical Action.

I like to go every summer, if I can, to a woodwork course in Clissett Wood, west of the Malvern Hills in Herefordshire (see www.greenwoodwork.co.uk).  I have so far made two chairs and a bench, two tables, a roof for my straw-bale urinal, a folding tray for carrying tea to the bedroom and the garden, a bird table, and a hat stand.

 

I have no car and used to own seven cycles - one for each occasion - although several have been forced into early retirement over the last few years!

How Joseph Priestley changed my life ...

In the summer of 1990 I was a producer at Yorkshire Television.  On 7 August I bought a mountain bike and started riding from my home in Heckmondwike to the office in Leeds.  One day I was staggering up the long hill from Birstall to Drighlington when I spotted a blue plaque on what turned out to be Field Head Farm, almost overhanging the M62.  Having discovered that this was Joseph Priestley’s birth place, I then found that he had spent his teenage years with his Aunt at the Old Hall in Heckmondwicke, which had become my local pub, and had discovered oxygen as a result of watching the beer brewing in a brewery in Leeds.  This was the beginning of Local Heroes; so Joseph Priestley changed my life.

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And a letter published in the Daily Telegraph!

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Page last updated: Tuesday, 09 August 2011 15:53