Marvellous: Neil Baldwin - My Story

The most heart-warming story of one man's triumph you will hear this year
Bishops and archbishops, top footballers, politicians and actresses...they all count him as their friend. Prime ministers and senior royals stop and listen to his opinions. He's got an honorary degree and his very own football club. He has even been on TV.Born with 'learning difficulties' and all but abandoned by his schools, Neil went on to become kit man to Stoke City FC. Lou Macari, the club's then manager, described him as 'my best ever signing'. But who is Neil Baldwin? As a boy in a working-class part of the Potteries in the fifties and sixties, the education system wrote him off. But Neil, who believes you can just 'get things by asking for them', knows his late Mum wanted him to have a happy life, and it's his duty to her to have one. So he does. At Keele University, they hold regular celebrations and services for the decades he's been a friend to the students, academics and vice-chancellors; but he's never been a student, a teacher, or had any formal connection with the place. At Stoke City Football Club, he's 'more famous than the players'. He's even got a dialogue going with the Queen - though that one's still a little one-sided. This is the inspiring, moving and at times hysterically funny story of Neil Baldwin's marvellous life.

Neil 'Nello' Baldwin w as born in 1946. As a child he was assessed as having (in today's language) learning difficulties, a label which he has ignored to live a colourful life. At various times he has been a circus clown; Stoke City kit man; friend of the famous; active church member and ran his own football team. He was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2019 New Year's Honours list, and has also been granted the Freedom of Stoke-on-Trent, as well as holding an honorary degree from Keele University for services to student welfare.

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• ISBN Marvellous: Neil Baldwin - My Story book Paperback 304 pages