Globetrotting lab tech is new Town Crier


NEWTONAbbot’s new town crier is globe-trotter Nigel Kenneison. The 61-year-old classic car and gardening enthusiast takes over the colourful post from veteran crier Cllr Ken Purchase, who has laid down his tricorn hat after 26 years to become town mayor. A former Royal Army Medical Corps lab technician and NHS lab manager, Mr Kenneison was appointed to the position after revealing, in his post-interview introductory cry, that he had... ‘Been North, South, East and


West,


Swam in the South China Sea, paddled in the Pacific, To the North Cape and Cape of Good Hope,


Have been to the Antipodes Seen John O’Groats and Lands


End...’


He decided to put himself forward because he had ‘always been told I have a loud voice and a “presence” (and) it seemed like a good opportunity to give something to the local community that I felt I could do.’


Born in St Ives, Cornwall, and married with a daughter and stepson, Mr Kenneison was educated in Taunton, where he also took part in school plays and several Army Christmas concerts, and Finland, where his father was based for three years in his GCHQ


posting. He came to Devon in 1999, moved to Newton Abbot in 2003 and is now retired. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1976 and trained as a Laboratory Technician passing through all the stages of both Army and technical training, taking voluntary redundancy in 1996 as a Warrant Officer Class 2; he had also gained civilian qualifications as a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Scientists (FIBMS) and a MSc in Clinical Parasitology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.


Whilst in the Army he took


military training in Keogh Barracks, Aldershot, laboratory training in the Royal Army Medical College at Millbank, London, now part of Chelsea Art College, and undertook several tours of duty in military hospitals in Catterick (‘affectionately called Ice Station Zebra’), Hong Kong (twice), Aldershot and Woolwich along with a short tour in Belize; his remaining time was spent training other technicians at the RAMC.


He moved to the NHS in 1996 and worked asa Histopathologylaboratory manager in North Middlesex Hospital, Kingston upon Thames, Exeter, and finally Torbay taking early retirement in 2015. The proud owner of a white


Triumph Spitfire 1500 (the last of the great Spitfire range introduced by Triumph in 1962 following the success of the rival Austin Healey Sprite) he is also area organiser for the Triumph Sports Six Club Devon branch and spends his free time ‘tinkering with the car and going to village fairs, especially at Powderham and Killerton’. On the gardening front he cultivates cucumbers and tomatoes in a greenhouse and sweetcorn in his front and back gardens. To hire the crier in his official capacity, email him at nigelk57@gmail.com.


OYEZ! Contestants for the 2017 annual town criers’ contest. 10 NEWTON ABBOT TOWN GUIDE


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