Bryan Lindop

Bryan Lindop was born in the Elizabethan Market Town of Nantwich in the County of Cheshire, England on the 14th November 1962. Having initially attended drama school, he received elocution lessons, which gave him very precise diction. "I often get the Mickey taken out of me at work", he says, because everyone says I speak BBC English, but really I'm just a working class lad who feels we should be proud of our language." Trained as a mechanical-electrical fitter for British Railways Signals & Telecommunications Department, he went on to work as a studio projectionist at Ealing Film Studios for the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1983 when he was 20. Promotion to Assistant Film Editor quickly followed where his passion for old movies enabled him to take a career side-step when he became a Technical Film Archivist, restoring classic movies for the BBC Programme Acquisition Department. Amongst other projects, he was responsible for the RKO film library for which the BBC owned the UK broadcast and theatrical rights. He carried out the restoration of King Kong (1933) in 1990 and this was re-premiered at the National Film Theatre in London. He was also Head of Nitrate at the BBC and was solely responsible for all Nitrate film passing through the Corporation, both nationally and regionally. He set up his own independent film archive in the 1980's, when he realised that an awful lot of film was being lost through neglect, lack of funds or specialist knowledge. "I was working at the BBC at the time and shared my thoughts and concerns one day with head of programme acquisition, Barry Brown. It was he who suggested I set up a film archive. The archive now forms a specialist holding facility for independent rights holders and small independent production companies who are unable or unwilling to look after their own material, but who want to retain complete control over it." In the mid 1990's, he made a surprising career change when he went to work for Blackpool Transport Services Ltd, the custodians of the historic Blackpool Tramway. "I felt I was stagnating and needed new challenges," he said. "I've always loved the Blackpool Tramway and always secretly wanted to drive one as a boy". He is now custodian of the vintage tram fleet, as well as handling much of the Company's PR and regularly acts as media spokesman. He won Employee of the Year award in the 2008 national light rail industry awards for his PR work on the tramway and in 2009 he was project coordinator of the Team of the Year Award for the restoration of the iconic Western Train Illuminated Tram. He has made countless appearances on television and radio, in news stories and documentaries, representing both Blackpool Transport and Blackpool Council's Illuminations Department. He also does occasional voice over work, having passed his voice tests for BBC Radio whilst working in London.