Today our speaker was William Douglas and it was his turn to give us his job talk.
William was born in London and his grandfather was Freddy Ward ,a former Grimsby Town Clerk and member of this club.He has happy memories of visiting Grimsby and being taken to see the Mariners and is still a keen fan.
William grew up in North London and at school he was a keen cross country runner,rugby player and thespian.At Kent University he studied English and Drama and after graduating Willaim wanted a job in production.He gained work experience for a live talk show on a B.B.C. radio programme and was required to book speakers and live musicians. The first guest was the opera singer Willard White and thereafter he was called Willard! William related some of his experiences in attempting to arrange guests including Steve Coogan.This was an arduous task and he worked throughout the night being passed from studio to studio in California.Eventually Steve came to the telephone but was extremely unhappy and tried to get William the sack.
He must have made his mark, because the job experience became a permanent contract.He continued to be a producer for 7 years where he met a number of notable people. It certainly was a first,for a job talk and Rotary, to have an audio recording of Cleo Lane playing the three witches in Macbeth. Personally, I found this quite exciting,with its rhythm , and was in stark contrast to my reading the same play for ‘O’ level.
William found the BBC an infuriating institution-remember W1A?In 2001 William joined the corporate sector, again in the audio field, and this included doing a piece for Ken Clarke ‘s election.In 2003 he moved into Technology and Telecoms and developed ,and launched, several new mobile services.
He has left this world and moved to Grimsby where he is working in property development and, with a partner, developing a “postal solution” for the mobile telephone.
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Grimsby Rotary Club raises money to provide support to local causes throughout the year.
moreThe generosity of Grimsby supermarket shoppers to the annual Christmas supermarket collections makes a substantial contribution to the Grimsby Rotary Benevolent Fund from which local charities are the main beneficiaries.
moreGrimsby Rotary is a friendly and relaxed club where members enjoy many social events
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