Date/Time: 17th February 2015, 17:30 - 18:45

The 2015 Fickling Lecturer, given by Ian McMillan, explores how children's books such as the Biggles series of W E Johns set him on course to becoming an influential and much-loved poet, broadcaster, commentator and programme maker.

A focus of his lecture will be on work making performance poems with excluded teenagers in a Pupil Referral Unit and the way working with words helps children and young people negotiate – and renegotiate – the world.

Speaker biography

Ian McMillan was born in Barnsley where he still lives today. He studied Modern Studies at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, all the while knowing he wanted to be a writer and performer. He began working freelance in 1981 with the aid of a grant from Yorkshire Arts.

Ian has been poet in residence at Barnsley Football Club, Northern Spirit Trains and Humberside Police. He has written comedy for radio and plays for the stage, and has worked extensively for BBC Radios 1, 2, 3, 4 and Five Live, as well as for Yorkshire Television and BBC2’s Newsnight Review.  

Currently Ian presents The Verb, Radio 3’s Cabaret of The Word. He continues to gig across the country with cartoonist Tony Husband and musician Luke Goss. He also writes weekly columns for The Yorkshire Post and The Barnsley Chronicle.