Gary Wilkinson, who became a member of the Joiners’s Company, has been a key player in the multi-million-pound rescue of the Durham Miners’ Hall at Redhills - recently handed a £3,000 donation from the freemen’s charitable trust to cover costs of a key information board to greet visitors on arrival.
Due to be officially opened later this year, the £13 million project’s major contractor is the Dunston-based Meldrum Construction Services Group - where Gary is head of purchasing and responsible for sourcing all the materials for the work.
Sixty-year-old Gary was born and bred in the city and attended Durham Wearside School before starting out as a wood machinist with Alan Wilson, builders’ merchants in Sidegate, where there stood a since demolished street named after the family of his maternal grandfather, Robert Lovegreen. The business switched to Malden Timber and then on to Jewsons, where he was a development manager for nine years.
In his current post he is responsible for managing an annual budget of up to £10 million.
“My family ancestry in the city stretches back a long way and I am proud to call myself a ‘Durham man,’ which makes the status of a freeman even more special,” he added.
Gary and his wife Lesley, who works for Durham County Council, live on the east side of the city. They have three grown up children, Robert, a company director, Kay, a cost analyst for a Dutch chemical company and Lewis, an accomplished musician and key member of staff in Durham University’s Music Department. He devotes his spare time to directing the North East Film Orchestra which has played at a number of venues, including the city’s Gala Theatre.
Away from work Gary is a life-long Sunderland supporter and is also committed to keeping fit through cycling, swimming and regular five kilometre park runs in the city.
And a talk given by the trust to the Durham and District Prostrate Cancer Support and Promotion Group – prompted Christopher Atkinson to make a successful application for membership which saw him installed into the Cordwainers’ Company.
The group’s four dozen members, some of whom have undergone treatment for prostate cancer, are backed by nine volunteers and all meet regularly at the Brawn’s Den public house at Brandon. This year they have twice been backed with financial grants from the trust and remain the only group of its kind in the region which takes its themed “road show” to indoor and outdoor public events.
Now 65, Christopher started his working life as an apprentice armature winder at the NCB’s Tursdale Workshops until he was made redundant after 19 years. He subsequently set up his own electrical business, inspecting and testing electrical installations.
After spending 27 years as an electrical inspector, the last seven as an electrical compliance officer with Newcastle City Council, he is now on the cusp of retirement.
A keen golfer, he was playing off a handicap of eight at Brancepeth Golf Club before being forced to retire by of injury. Christopher now confines his sporting interest to following the fortunes of Newcastle United.
Kay, his wife of 43 years, is a medical receptionist at the Claypath Medical Practice and daughter Sarah, who has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, is based at a specialist centre for young people in Newton Aycliffe.
