Author’s Profile
orn in Essex
in 1956, my interdisciplinary career has included several complementary, areas
of interest in the arts, sciences, the environment and practical trades. With
an early interest in painting and design, I was educated at Bryanston School
on an Art Scholarship (my family having moved to Devon
in 1964) and was awarded the Henry Moore apprentice prize for sculpture in 1971
under the tutelage of Donald Potter.
With both structural and
mechanical engineers in the family, I indulged my boyhood love of driving by
maintaining various old mopeds and karts, was an active member of the Exeter and District Kart
Club and a Track Marshall at the Wiscombe Park Hill Climb.
Working in my college holidays as
a junior designer and copywriter in the advertising department of the Readers
Union Book Club at the David and Charles Publishing Company from 1973, I
graduated with a degree in Theatre Design at the Wimbledon School of Art in
1977 and worked as a freelance designer for advertising and theatre clients. I
was also employed as an advertising and sales promotion account executive and
writer for three advertising agencies; Hallett-Paul Publicity in Devon and Cato
Johnson (Young and Rubicam) and Marketing Triangle in London, devising campaigns for clients
including Johnson & Johnson, Martini & Rossi, Glenfiddich, Allied
Breweries and Trendon Sports. Theatre clients included the Redgrave Company,
Anne Jellico’s Medium Fair Touring Company and a number of community
educational projects. I also provided free or at-cost design and prop-making
services for local schools and amateur theatre groups.
Environmental projects in 1977/8
included devising and running the Buckfastleigh Mill Scheme, becoming a founder
member and publicity officer of the Dartmoor Badgers Protection League and
campaigning locally for Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Ecology Party.
I also worked briefly for Dart
Knitwear in marketing and production design: clients included Triminghams of
Bermuda, Neiman Marcus and Ralph Lauren (for whom I had previously designed the
rose motif for the “Annie Hall” knitwear collection). But I was becoming
increasingly disillusioned with consumerism and took a short MTIT course to
emerge as a qualified vehicle mechanic and welder; starting my own South London classic car restoration business in 1984 and
working free-lance for the Aston Martin Group C endurance race team at R.S.
Williams.
Realising that my voluntary work
in community development and the environment were becoming increasingly
important to my world view and that the motor trade was really more of a
passionate interest rather than an ethically driven commitment, it was clear
that I needed to make some drastic changes. In 1986 I enrolled at Middlesex
Polytechnic and emerged in 1990 with a first class B.Sc. in which I focused on
energy physics and renewable energy technologies; supplementing the course with
social science modules on food production, economics and sustainable
development.
While at Middlesex I wrote the UK’s first Charter for Renewable Energy in 1989
under the guidance of Schumacher Award winner Dr. David Elliot at the Network
for Alternative Technology and parts of my original research for my 1990 thesis
were used to create the UK’s
first energy eco-labelling regulations for electrical appliances. I was a
member of the UK’s
Parliamentary Alternative Energy Group from 1989 to 1993.
n 1991 I became the Energy
Conservation Officer in one of the UK’s
first Local Authority specialist Environment Units based at Watford Council and
managed several ground-breaking projects including the national pilot project
for the UK’s
Home Energy Conservation Act (1995). I was Chair of the Black Employees Support
Group for 3 years, Chair of the Hertfordshire Energy Forum for 2 years and was
a founder member of The European Energy and Air Quality Model (Equam) with
Professor Ranjeet Sokhi at Hertfordshire
University and was on the
United Nations Local Agenda 21 Committee. I also instigated: a community
development outreach programme, the adoption of Combined Heat and Power (CHP)
schemes and the insulation of over 3000 hard-to-heat homes under the Home
Energy Efficiency Scheme in partnership with Richard Moores of Baring
Insulation. In addition I wrote a large number of environmental pamphlets and
guides and contributed to energy articles for local and national media
including The Guardian, The Financial Times and LBC Radio.
I have also found time for
creative work including writing songs, plays, short stories and non-fiction polemics.
My poetry has been published in anthologies in the USA
and the UK and I have
performed in many venues in London and Devon including The Riverside, The Foundry, Exeter
Phoenix and Plymouth Barbican. I have played blues piano in venues in London
and Devon including the Blues Café, Tavistock Wharf The Ashburton Blues Festival while my short
plays have been performed at the Watford Palace Theatre and the Allsorts Arts
Centre under the direction of Jessica Dromgoole and Deborah Shaw.
In 1998 I moved back to Devon and was employed as a Senior Environmental
Consultant for the Plymouth Groundwork Trust, securing a €1 million grant from
the European Union for the Envision Project. After a period of illness I worked
as a self employed woodlands manager and sales agent for Woodlands-For-Sale
Since 2005 my health has been very patchy and I have worked on and off during a
long convalescence in part-time and temporary self-employed work as a handyman,
hard-landscape designer and vehicle mechanic.
Nick Nakorn, August 2010