Former English Teacher and Charity Shop Stalwart is New Ribble Valley Mayor
A former English teacher and well-known friendly face at the town’s Cancer Research shop is Ribble Valley’s new mayor.
Jan Alcock was born and brought up in Ribble Valley and attended St Mary’s Primary School at Osbaldeston and Lark Hill House School in Preston.
After studying English at Leicester University, she undertook a PGCE at Moray House, Edinburgh, before teaching stints at Wakefield Girls’ High School, Westholme School in Blackburn, Oakhill School in Whalley and Clitheroe Grammar School.
While working in schools, Jan took up skiing and accompanied school groups to Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, France, Canada and the USA.
And for an astounding 40-plus years she has volunteered at Clitheroe’s Cancer Research shop, where she now counts some of the shop’s regular bargain-hunters as friends.
Jan joined Ribble Valley Borough Council as representative for Aighton, Bailey and Chaigley – now Hurst Green and Whitewell – over 25 years ago and is a former chairman of the council’s licensing committee.
She served as a magistrate in Blackburn and Hyndburn adult and youth courts for 20 years and was a member of the Lancashire Magistrates’ Courts Committee.
Jan is a trustee of the Ribble Rivers Trust and regularly joins volunteer groups to litter-pick and tidy vegetation, her best haul being a fridge-freezer and six-foot gas canister at the Primrose Lodge Nature Reserve in Clitheroe!
She received her civic chains at a ceremony in the Ribble Valley Borough Council Chamber last night (Tuesday, May 12).
The mayor’s chosen charities are the Ribble Rivers Trust and Cancer Research UK, and her mayoress is her sister, Dr Alison Brown.