Ian Peter Cullimore (born 6 April 1962) is an English musician, journalist and actor. He played guitar, between 1983 and 1988, for the Hull-based
indie rock
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...
band
The Housemartins
The Housemartins were an English indie rock group formed in Hull who were active in the 1980s and charted three top-ten albums and six top-twenty singles in the UK. Many of their lyrics conveyed a mixture of socialist politics and Christianit ...
.
Early life
He was born in
Stapleford, Cambridgeshire. He moved to Birmingham, where he went to school at
, a state
grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
. His father was a university lecturer, and his mother was a piano teacher. He took a gap year.
He studied
Maths
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
at the
University of Hull
, mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status
, type = Public
, endowment = £18.8 million (2016)
, budget = £190 million ...
from 1980, graduating in 1984. He was a member of the University of Hull team that were runners up in the 2014 ''
Christmas University Challenge
''Christmas University Challenge'' is a British quiz programme which has aired on BBC Two since 2011. It is a spin-off from University Challenge that airs daily over the Christmas period, and features teams of noteworthy alumni from British u ...
''.
Career
Music
He responded to a local newspaper advertisement by The Housemartins singer
Paul Heaton
Paul David Heaton (born 9 May 1962) is an English singer-songwriter. He was the frontman of the Housemartins, who had success with the singles " Happy Hour" and the UK number one "Caravan of Love" in 1986 before disbanding in 1988. He then form ...
seeking musicians in 1983. Most of the band's songs were written by Heaton and Cullimore. After leaving the band, he ran a
whole food shop for about five years. He has performed on ''Songs from the Shed'', which was published on its YouTube Channel.
Journalism and writing
Cullimore went on to become a journalist and author of over 120 children's books. He has written for publications such as the ''
Daily Mail'', the ''
Hull Daily Mail'' and the ''
Bristol Post
The ''Bristol Post'' is a city/regional five-day-a-week (formerly appearing six days per week) newspaper covering news in the city of Bristol, including stories from the whole of Greater Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. It was ...
''. He also
composes music and songs for children's television. In 2009, he co-wrote and appeared in a preschool music series called ''
The Bopps'' for
Nick Jr
Nick Jr. (known on-air as the Nick Jr. Channel) is an American pay television channel spun off from Nickelodeon's long-running programming block of the same name. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family ...
UK, which aired in April 2010.
He began working as a journalist in 2014 and wrote a column in a local Bristol paper. Alongside this he has been working with AuthorsAbroad,
teaching young children, from all around the world, creative writing and music.
Personal life
He married his wife Amelia in May 1988 in Hull; they have two daughters and two sons together.
References
External links
Cullimore's website*
Books for Keeps article
1962 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Hull
English composers
English rock guitarists
English children's writers
People educated at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys
People from Stapleford, Cambridgeshire
The Housemartins members
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