Name Chris Wood | Role Politician Nephews Henry Durham | |
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Siblings Victoria Wood, Rosalind Wood, Penny Wood Books T Dan Smith: "Voice of t, Walking Over the Waves: Q, Tindale Towers: New Art, Bishop Auckland in Old Pic | ||
Parents Nellie Mape, Stanley Wood | ||
Chris foote wood interviews tim farron march 2011
Chris Foote Wood (born Christopher Wood, Prestbury, Cheshire, 15 December 1940) is an English politician and author. He is the brother of the late comedian and actress Victoria Wood.
Contents
- Chris foote wood interviews tim farron march 2011
- Chris Foote Wood Lib Dem candidate for Middlesbrough
- Education and early career
- Political career
- Author
- References
Chris Foote Wood Lib Dem candidate for Middlesbrough
Education and early career
Foote Wood is one of four children of Stanley Wood and Nellie Mape; he has three sisters, the late comedian Victoria, and Penny and Rosalind.
Foote Wood went to Bury Grammar School, winning the Senior Mathematics prize. He completed a four-year honours degree course in Civil Engineering at Kings College, Newcastle (then part of the University of Durham) but was not awarded a degree. He worked as a civil engineer for several years before starting Durham Free Press in 1968, pioneering commercial free press newspapers in the North East, but gave it up after three years to work as a freelance journalist and broadcaster. He later set up his own press agency, North Press News & Sport, and ran it for 30 years up to 2004.
Political career
Foote Wood has contested a large number of public elections at all levels. He has stood for Parliament eight times as a Liberal, later Liberal Democrat (February 1974 – Newcastle North; October 1974 & 2010 – Middlesbrough; 1979 – Durham City; 1983 & 1987 North West Durham; 2001 & 2005 – Bishop Auckland) and the European Parliament six times (1979 & 1984 for Durham; 1999 No. 1 on the North East list; 2004 No. 2 on the North East list; 2009 No. 2 on the North East list; 2014 No. 4 on the Yorkshire and the Humber list). He also stood as Mayor of Middlesbrough in 2011. Foote Wood was a district councillor in Bishop Auckland for 40 years, from 1967 to 2007 and was Leader of Wear Valley District Council for six years. He was also a member of Durham County Council for 12 years, Vice-Chairman of the North East Regional Assembly and a member of the EU Committee of the Regions, one of the three elected councillors representing the North East on this body and the first LibDem to do so.
He was the Liberal Democrat PPC in Richmond for the 2015 General election before stepping aside in March 2015.
Author
Foote Wood's first nationally-published book, Nellie's Book, about the early life of his mother, Nellie Mape, was published by Sutton in 2006. Foote Wood has gone on to write several more books, including When I'm Sixty-Four (1,001 things to do at 60+), and a comprehensive guide to the 56 remaining seaside pleasure piers in Britain, Walking Over the Waves, launched on Brighton Palace Pier in June 2008. He followed this up with a "blog book" of his journey around the coast of Britain, "My Great British Pier Trip", as well as organising the Great British Pier Crawl 2008.
Foote Wood researched, wrote and published a biography of T. Dan Smith, the former Leader of Newcastle City Council in the 1960s who was jailed for corruption in the 1970s along with business associates who included architect John Poulson and former Durham County Council Chairman Alderman Andy Cunningham.
Foote Wood now works as an author, editor and publisher with his latest business, Northern Writers, and is an accomplished "ghost writer".