David Pearson JP DL MA(York) FRSA - Deputy Lieutenant, West Yorkshire Lieutenancy

David Pearson JP DL MA(York) FRSA – Deputy Lieutenant, West Yorkshire Lieutenancy

David was born in 1955. His mother Olga, was a book-keeper in a large motor workshop in Keighley, where she had met his father Albert in 1942. They married when he returned from national service in India in 1948.

David attended St. Anne’s Primary School but showed little academic aptitude. He was though one of the last Keighley children to pass an 11+ examination which took him to St. Bede’s Grammar in Bradford. Hating sport and not academic, the next seven years were not a happy time for David, but he must have had something, as he left as a prefect with six ‘O’ levels and two indifferent ‘A’ levels.

Not really knowing what he wanted to do, he replied to an advertisement for a job at Yorkshire Bank, where he worked for the next 23 years. Drifting into it with indifference, the bank saw something in David and made him a tutor at its training centre, which changed his life. He rose from a junior tutor to being the Assistant Manager of the whole operation, which not only had teaching but administrative, domestic and ground staff. In between roles at the Training Centre, he returned to main stream banking from time to time but each confirmed that although he could teach banking and allied subjects very well indeed, he was not the most gifted of practitioners in the subject.

Whilst Assistant Manager, he was teaching on a course which included Elaine Wright, then the Assistant Manager at Yorkshire Bank in Macclesfield. With a little prompting from her he asked her out and they were married twelve months later to the day.

He left the bank in 1996, the new ownership and culture not agreeing with David’s views of how a bank should be run and he got a job driving a train with Great North Eastern Railway. Before he started, his professional body, the Chartered Institute of Bankers, asked him to do some consultancy for them and this was another life changing event. He forgot about driving trains, set up a company and for the next twenty years, provided training services to banks and businesses in banking and finance related subjects. He worked delivering for larger providers such as the Financial Times, various UK universities and professional bodies.

This involved a huge amount of very regular long haul flying, besides much UK travel. Elaine joined him in the business in 1998, supposedly to do the administration which had become considerable, but soon developed her own customers when David’s discovered what she could also do for them.

Running his own business gave David time to become a Magistrate in 1997. He had always been interested in the law and history and he wanted to put something back into society for what it had given him. Never having had a degree and always regretting this, in 2003 David took a Masters by Research at York in Railway History. Since he was a child, David had a fascination for railways in general and the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway in particular where he has been a volunteer guard, member of station staff and a tour guide for over 50 years. This led to him organising a royal visit to the KWVR in 2008 by HRH the Duke of Kent which complimented David’s other interest, the British history, its Constitution and the Monarchy. In 2013 he was invited by the Lord-Lieutenant for West Yorkshire to accept her commission as a Deputy Lieutenant, representing Her Majesty which he has done subsequently at over 300 events all over West Yorkshire.

David retired in 2015 and enjoys travel with Elaine, besides remaining very active at the KWVR, as a Magistrate and with the Lieutenancy. Elaine gave up work also in 2015 and is a county standard golfer, which takes up a great deal of her time.

Reflecting, David could never have imagined how lucky life has turned out to be for him and is very grateful for this, but he is also conscious that he grabbed every opportunity and made quite a lot too! His favourite quote, oddly for such a Monarchist, comes from Oliver Cromwell “Trust in God, but keep your powder dry” which says it all and has stood him in good stead throughout his life.

Sectors worked in and routes taken.

Banking & Finance 1973 to 1996	Yorkshire Bank 23 years. Branch banking then Head Office training and policy making.
Own business 1996 to 2015	Ran my own limited company providing training, assessment, tuition and consultancy services in all aspects of banking and finance for businesses. We also undertook consultancy services to the Higher Education sector in these fields plus British Constitutional Law, geopolitics and British constitutional and political history.
Heritage	I have for decades worked on a pro-bono basis for heritage charities, in particular the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. I provide heritage interpretation, speaker.

What I would like to get involved in

I’d not say I’d give an ‘inspiration talk’, hence the entry here, rather than on the left. However, I’d be very happy to meet groups to tell them my story, from a two up two down in Keighley to being a JP and Deputy to the Lord-Lieutenant. I can tell them about the Lieutenancy and how it represents the Monarch in the county, what we do, who we are and how one gets such a strange job.