Terry Durney

Thank you to Terry Durney for sharing the following information:

I've lived in Leyland from the age of 2, (67 years), & started at Balshaws in 1967 after passing my 11+ at Farington Junior school. I left in 1972 with 5 O-levels. My work life for many years was fairly mundane - building trade, motor trade & Royal Mail.

It was when I started at the Post Office & had a bit more spare time that I decided I wanted to do something a bit different as well. One of the last customers I sold a car to was the news editor of BBC Radio Lancashire. I contacted Mike & asked if it would be possible to help out at the station at weekends. Mike introduced me to Jeremy Dry who presented the Saturday morning show. I started off just greeting guests, brewing up & answering the phones. This evolved into doing live reports & then onto co-presenting the show. When Jeremy left to work in London I was offered my own weekend request show & became Britain's only broadcasting postman!

I was at the station until 1991 when a new manager took over who wanted to completely change the station, stopping playing all the music the listeners requested on my show. I was offered a talk show I didn't want to do & was so annoyed at that manager that, in November 1991, I became the first radio presenter in the UK to resign live on air! ( there is a piece about this on Wikipedia under "on air resignations" ).

I thought this would be the end of my radio career but was offered a job at Red Rose Gold & also worked on Guild FM & helped to set up both Chorley FM & Radio Leyland.

In my mid 50's I took early retirement to look after my Dad as his full time carer. Dad always told me that when he'd gone that I should really go & try something I'd always wanted to do. So, after Dad died, I decided that I wanted to try film & TV acting! My experience in getting into radio helped, & I started doing background artist (extras) work. It was great - I worked on Coronation Street, DCI Banks, Hollyoaks, Citizen Khan & even 2 episodes of Peaky Blinders. I loved this so much I decided to take it to the next level & started training to be an established actor.

I worked hard & eventually gained my Spotlight registration. I'm now repesented by Zenith Artist Management (www.zenithartistmanagement.co.uk ), one of the north's top agencies & am being put forward for numerous TV, film & commercial roles.

I'm a great believer in "it's never too late to try something new", so I hope that if any of the current pupils read this that they'll bear that in mind.

Terry Durney