Brent Woods
Brent Woods is chief executive of the Media Centre in Huddersfield but is about to take up the post of director of the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive. Canadian-born Brent is married to Kaye, and they have a daughter, Megan.
What’s your first Yorkshire memory? It’s of coming to Sheffield in the early Nineties to explore the place, and to try to find the homes where my family had lived. My great-grandfather had built up his own business in the city (the premises were there until quite recently), but he’d decided to emigrate and to take them all to the wilds of Manitoba, in Canada. They then moved to Toronto, where I was born, and where I was raised. It was a really fun time of exploration and discovery, and I learned a lot. Most of all, I started to fall in love with the place and that’s why I moved back here.
What’s your favourite part of the county – and why? At the top of the list it has to be the Yorkshire Dales. I go up there with something on my mind and within seconds my heart is racing at the sheer beauty of the scenery, and my blood pressure takes a dive. If it’s been a tough week, there’s nothing better to revive and restore the spirits.
What’s your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire? It would start with a coffee at the Riverbank cafe in Burnsall, that’s for sure, and then we’d drive over to Settle, stopping off at the Courtyard Dairy, there’d be a bit of shopping and a visit to the Old School Tearooms, and the day would finish with a pint or two, preferably some good ale from the Dark Horse Brewery. As you can see, I like my coffee, my food, and my pints.
Do you have a favourite walk
– or view? Here in Sheffield we are surrounded by so many places where you can take a great walk, and there’s no shortage of breathtaking views, especially up and around the Bradfield and Langsett reservoirs.
Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, or past or present, would you like to take for dinner? Sir Michael Palin, who I’ve met a couple of times, albeit far too briefly. He’s a great supporter of things like the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival, and genuinely puts his time in. He’s humble about his achievements, dedicated and definitely a class act. And yes, I really believe that he is indeed a “national treasure”.
If you had to name your Yorkshire ‘hidden gem’, what would it be?
I’m not going to be too specific here, as revealing a “hidden gem” would be counter-productive, so I’m just going to whisper the word Joe’spresso, in Sheffield, which is nicely tucked away and where you’ll find a perfect brew of award-winning Marsden Dark Woods coffee.
What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity? A wonderful blend of so many things – the amazing natural landscape, for a start, the natural resources, the warmth of the welcome that you get here, the diversity and the sense of ongoing evolution. I have travelled all over the UK, and there’s really nowhere else where you are made to feel completely at home.
Do you follow sport in the county, and if so, what? Not my thing, but
I’ll admit to taking quite a few visiting friends and colleagues to Sheffield Steelers matches – and especially when they are playing Nottingham, their great rivals. Every time, there’s been an electric atmosphere, but it’s all family-orientated, competitive and great fun.
Do you have a favourite restaurant, or pub? Tonco, in Dyson Place, Sheffield. It used to be a pop-up enterprise, but now it has settled down into permanent premises. It’s run by a delightful lady called Flo Russell and it’s ingenuity meets innovation.
Do you have a favourite food shop? We are lucky enough to live very close to what I call an urban farm shop – Beeches of Walkley – and in the last exceedingly
difficult year they have really gone the extra mile for the local community.
How do you think that Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you’ve known it? There’s a pride in and about the place that just seems to get more and more strong, and people really celebrate what we have here in this county. It’s always a pleasure to see that manifested in so many ways – an example is that when she was a teenager, Megan used to display some artwork in her bedroom that showed those cooling towers which used to stand next to Meadowhall. They were iconic structures to so many people, part of the landscape. Go to the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield, and what are the bestsellers in their shop? Always the items with the word or an image of Yorkshire on it.
Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire? My greatgrandfather Alfred Sambrook, who built up a prosperous business here and who then had the courage to take his family to Canada, where he believed they would have a better life – remember that this was back in 1912. I never met him, but I love the stories of his entrepreneurial spirit and his bravery. I still poke around car boot sales in Sheffield and find things like cutlery with A Sambrook Ltd on them.
Has Yorkshire influenced your work? Absolutely. All my work has been focused on helping people in local communities to achieve their ambitions and potential.
Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/ performer.?There was a bloke at a gig I went to many years ago, who was the roadie and we fell to chatting. He then asked me if I’d like to listen to a demo cassette recording of his daughter, and I politely said “yes”. So, I took it home, played it, and it was the young Kate Rusby. I knew at once that she’d turn out to be something special. Going to Kate’s Christmas concerts every year is now part of a family tradition.
If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be? Bradford and the countryside that surrounds it. They’d find a real sense of what Yorkshire is all about. Industrial heritage, things developing and moving, a vibrant community, authenticity. I cannot think of anywhere better to show off what we are all about.