Shelley's man of words owes it all to his mates

Feb 26 2003 By Val Javin, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Val Javin

CRAIG Smith is living the dream.

Other than in odd bits of time snatched while he's travelling, Craig does most of his writing at weekends. He and Fi live in Streatham in south London where Craig has had a flat for four years.

"It's known among our friends as Little Huddersfield. The caretaker of our block of flats is an Elvis impersonator from Brighouse."

Craig is hoping that that small world will become still smaller tomorrow when he returns to Huddersfield to spend an evening at Ottaker's book shop in New Street where he'll be signing copies of his book. Maybe some of his old school friends from Shelley will turn up, or some of the guys he used to play football with.

Born and brought up in the town, (he lived in Shelley until he was 30), Craig went to Shelley First School, moved on to Kirkburton Middle School before finishing his school days at Shelley High.

He was part of drama teacher Steven Downs' winning contingent of youngsters whose staggeringly good performances collected honours in both the youth and open sections of the Kirklees Drama Festival back in the eighties?

We mull over joint memories of Shelley victories that I covered and he appeared in. We swap names and catch up as best we can on who's where and doing what.

Talented ex-pupils from Shelley seem to pop up all over the arts scene, Lena Headey in film, Daniel Kitson in comedy, Simon Wood in music, Kate Rusby dominating the folk scene, and now Craig as a writer.

And talking of Simon, an accomplished musician and now musical director of Hade Edge Band, guess who gave Craig's interest in poetry a helping hand.

"When I was at Shelley I had these two assignments to finish. My mates were all outside playing football so I dashed off two poems because it was quicker. I thought the poems were garbage, needless to say," said Craig.

His teacher disagreed and encouraged him to keep writing. Then one of his mates got Craig to go with him to Peter Sansom's poetry writing workshops, first at the old Huddersfield Polytechnic, then at Peter's Poetry Business in the Byram Arcade.The mate was Simon Wood.