Trustees

CHAIRPERSON – Doug Nicholls is a writer and poet and was formerly General Secretary of the Community and Youth Workers’ Union (1987/2011) and then the General Federation of Trade Unions (2012/2023).

TREASURER – Steve Orchard is a former senior executive in the media industry. He coaches organisational leadership and serves in a non-executive capacity as a director and trustee on a number of company and charity boards.

TRUSTEE – Daphne Romney is a barrister specialising in complex employment law.  She has acted for thousands of women in mass equal pay claims against local authorities, companies and trades unions. She is the author of Equal Pay - Law and Practice and chaired the Fawcett Party which drafted a bill amending the equal pay provisions of the Equality Act.  

She has also conducted investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at professional organisations, local authorities and elsewhere. She was awarded Queen's Counsel status in 2009.

TRUSTEE – Camila Oliveira is an international lecturer on William Blake with expertise in his influence on contemporary music. Born in Brazil, her translation of Jerusalem into Portuguese was published in 2024.

TRUSTEE – Mark McCahill is a housing and building safety specialist working in the public sector in London. His connection to Blake comes from research interests in vision, imagery and legacy, agreeing with the great poet that ‘I see through my eyes, not with them’ and ‘What is now proved was once only imagined’.

TRUSTEE – Rachel Higbee lived in Felpham as a child and returned as an adult.  She says Blake Cottage has always been part of her life.  She is an early years teacher and manager of early years educational establishments.  She has been director of the Chichester Children's Book Festival and a community ambassador for the Citizen's Advice Bureau in Bognor Regis. She also the coordinator for the adult reading charity, Read Easy in the Bognor Regis area. Rachel has special responsibility for Friends of the Blake Cottage Trust and the trust's volunteer co-ordination.

TRUSTEE – Richard Clemmow is a media executive, documentary producer, television and radio journalist and drama producer who has worked in the UK and the USA. He is also a trustee of the brain tumour charity OurBrainBank.

TRUSTEE – Irene Campbell is multi-lingual having studied modern languages and also has an MA in librarianship.  She worked as a librarian in West Sussex and subsequently became an Assistant Director of East Sussex County Council looking after the front facing services and the county's cultural agenda.  She has a PhD in early 20th century literature and for the last 25 years has held various trusteeships including for foundations celebrating the work of Hilaire Belloc and Virginia Woolf.  She was chair of the West Sussex Literary society and a trustee on the Advisory council of the Royal Society of Arts.  She has written on subjects as diverse as Ian Fleming and novels set in Bognor Regis.  She was recently chair of the West Sussex Citizen's Advice Bureau and is deputy chair of Cats Protection. She keeps her librarianship skills up to date as librarian of the Orchid Society of Great Britain.