What fantastic local talent

Regular readers will have seen yesterday's news story about Roger Wickson's new book 'Kings and Bishops in Medieval England' which deals with the relationship of the kings of England with their bishops from the Norman Conquest to Magna Carta.

Given a series of stories and photos published on AudlemOnline in recent weeks, it made me think of the sheer range of talent and expertise that resides in Audlem and the surrounding area.

Earlier this week, we read about the book publishing business run from the Mill Shop on Audlem Wharf. They specialise, as you would expect, in canal related subjects and have seen considerable success with a number of recent publications.

One of their books features Sheila H Webster's accomplished watercolours and she is just one of a number of professional artists who live in Audlem, often exhibiting their work at exhibitions, as well as a large number of amateur artists who displayed their work at this year's Music and Arts Festival. Recently Sheila Webster has painted an artist's impression of the new Public Hall annexe – along with Coxbank's Debbie Caine with her drawing of the building.

Last weekend saw an array of embroidery skills on display at the three-day 'Stitch in Time' exhibition held in Audlem Public Hall which attracted large numbers of visitors and, captured by AudlemOnline photographer Alvar Jones, saw a selection of works displayed on this website.

Audlem has always been a musical hotbed with a range of talent covering so many genres. In recent weeks, local musicians and the technical members of the Music Festival team have gone a major step forward with FatPigeon Live, a superb TV quality broadcast that has gone out on social media and AudlemOnline and gives the BBC's Jools Holland shows a good run for their money in both musical, technical and editing expertise.

Ian Haughey and Pete Marshall proved to be accomplished presenters and part of the FatPigeon Live show featured local musician and man of the world Mike Waldron who has just brought out a CD of his self-penned numbers.

And where was it recorded? At Audlem's own Hollow Floor Studios – how many small villages have a beautiful recording studio next to a canal? – which was featured on the AudlemOnline Homepage in a fine photograph – do click on the photo above to see it in its full panoramic glory – by sax and clarinet player Alisdair MacKenzie.

Alisdair, apart from his photographic and musical ability, proved to be Audlem's Gareth Malone last December when he played such a vital role in the 'Amazing Grace' video for Mend our Mum which went around the world and showed that a good 1,100 people of all ages locally can sing!

And, of course, we cannot miss out local musician and IT genius, John Gunstone – but here we have to declare an interest as he is a founder member of the AudlemOnline webteam – who has developed the technology that runs no less than 173 websites around the country though his company ThenMedia.

Only this week, AudlemOnline was dealing with a query from 200 miles away with another village considering taking on ThenMedia's technology and who also showed interest in the electronic screen system designed by two members of the webteam – John Gunstone and John Tilling – and which are now helping to publicise events and promote local businesses in seven local shops, pubs, the marina and the post office.

And moving from the screen to print, we are so lucky to have Audlem Printers, run by Joe Sheldon, who provides an amazing print service to so many local organisations and is always bringing out new services, including last week a new range of personalised desk calendars.

I am sure, having focused mainly on recent news on AudlemOnline, I have missed many other amazing talents out of this piece. If so, we would love to hear from you.

But in the meantime, let's reflect on the luck we have in Audlem that so many people around here have such an array of skills – and contribute so much to the local community through fabulous events and so much more.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.