Celebrating a decade providing freelance marketing and PR support

10 years ago in March I left a wonderful in-house job heading up the marketing and PR department at the National Railway Museum. I’d delivered a new brand, generated the best visitors numbers in over 3 decades (over 1 million!) and relaunched the locomotive Flying Scotsman and was seeking a new challenge.

I’m proud to celebrate a decade in March 2026 of using my marketing and PR skills and experience to support Yorkshire visitor attractions, tourism bodies, charities and small businesses to grow their audiences and bring their stories alive. I’m still working with the railways (!) and here’s just a little taste of some highlights and some things you might not know about my career.

• My first job as a freelancer was generating PR in local, regional and national arts and theatre press for the Mystery Plays in the Nave of York Minster – a spectacle not seen for 16 years. I worked with costumiers, seamstresses, set designers, actors and volunteers to generate radio, TV and print news coverage and then fabulous theatre reviews of the epic event.
• Heading up PR for the North region at the National Trust including writing about natterjack toads and sand lizards as part of the 50^th anniversary of the Trust caring for the special coastal landscape at Formby. Commissioning a wonderful nature themed birthday cake from a local cake maker to thank volunteers and secure numerous positive stories in the media.

• Leading the pitch to create a new brand for the North York Moors Railway plus lots of other fantastic heritage railway projects including fundraising initiatives, a new multi-media awareness advertising campaign and evaluating the impact of their £10 million National Lottery Heritage Funded project.

• Going back to the National Railway Museum – twice! Once to lead pre-planning consultation communications for their masterplan as part of York Central (which is now becoming a reality) and then donning a VR headset working with Digital Urban. Visitors had the chance to explore what stations of the future would look, feel and sound like as part of Explore Station.

• Leading marketing and PR for arts and culture initiatives at Selby Stories working with a wealth of talented artists and writers including Serena Partridge whose tiny stitched artworks hidden in nooks and crannies around Selby Abbey encouraged visitors to look deeper.

• Launching Selby’s first food festival, securing PR features about a recently unearthed historic local cookbook and meeting one of the youngest influencers I’ve ever met, Chef Imogen.

• Securing extensive TV coverage for the first ever York Unlocked event opening up the doors to discover York’s most interesting and significant buildings plus several national travel features.

• Getting both BBC Look North and ITV Calendar along as TV presenter Guy Martin unveiled a World Origin Site status plaque at the Lincoln hotel where the first tank was designed.

• Writing the annual report 5 years in a row for Leeds Housing Charity Latch and getting their amazing work featured on regional and national TV multiple times – including ITV news and Greatest Hits Radio.

The variety of projects I’ve had the privilege of working on as a freelancer is astounding and it was absolutely worth the risk to leave a job I loved to share that love with even more organisations. There’s lots more than this list too – marketing strategies, marketing plans, PR media training, community engagement and even interpretation panels. What do they have in common? Me and my passion. I’ve brought my heart and soul to every client and piece of work to help them raise their profile and engage more people with their incredible stories.

That’s what you get from me – passion, creativity and integrity. Whether I’m working with you on a one-off press release or a holistic marketing strategy to help you reach new audiences, I’ll make sure I get right to the heart of who you are and what makes your audiences tick. I’ll then bring all my knowledge, skills and contacts together to make sure I deliver your expectations – and always beyond.

If you’re intrigued to find out more, you’ll find case studies about these and other projects around this site. If you think I might be able to help you, I’d love to chat. Here’s to the next decade!