Richard Elgood
I have spent a life long career as a teacher of English and Drama, latterly in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and have seen many of my former pupils, including Rowan Atkinson, go on to enjoy great success in professional theatre.
As a poet and writer I have written countless plays, sketches and of course odes which have celebrated key milestones in my life and the lives of my friends and family.
Having taught in schools, each year ended with the departure of friends and colleagues and I started writing poems, usually light and frivolous, to add flavour to their leaving parties. The pupils soon picked up on these poems (as pupils do!) and began to ask me to write odes for the entire Year 11 and Upper Sixth leavers, and this I did for many years.
On retirement (having of course written myself a retirement poem) I decided that this would be a wonderful way of keeping my writing alive – and so it has proved. It is rewarding, and indeed a privilege, to be involved in so many deeply personal times in other people's lives and to be able to make a contribution to them.
On my personal level, I follow practically all sports involving a ball – I still struggle on the squash court, and on the golf course celebrate the odd par, and very occasional birdie; and I ski ever more posily and slowly. Naturally theatre plays a large part in my life: both as an audience member and as a director of local open-air summer shows. I have also examined for Edexcel Drama A Level.
I am blessed with three children, six grandchildren (at present) and am afflicted with a life long passion for Birmingham City Football Club.
All work remains copyright of Richard Harvey Elgood and cannot be resold or publicly broadcast without the express permission of the author.
Richard Elgood