From getting tipsy with Philip Larkin to telling stories at Eureka!, writer Nick Toczek reflects on a varied career

“He was getting his award as an established Yorkshire writer, I was getting mine as Yorkshire’s most promising new writer,” 73-year-old Nick recalls. “I did get a friendly letter from Philip Larkin afterwards, which I treasure. That encounter, along with a couple of embarrassing performances, taught me to stay sober when appearing in public.”

Almost fifty years later, the poet, music journalist, musician and performer has been honoured with an Outstanding Contribution Award at the University of Bradford. It was a rather more sedate affair than that first award, but one which means just as much to the homegrown writer. “I’ve never chased rewards. I don’t enter competitions, I don’t depend on approval from outside,” Nick says.

“This honour came completely out of the blue and, to be honest, my initial response was embarrassment. I don’t think of myself as doing anything but a job. However, to get this award from the university - my local university - really means something...You go away from university inspired by memorable encounters with lecturers and others who have influenced you. If, by accepting this award, I am able to inspire students to think about literature, even if that’s not what they’re focused on, and to feel more empowered, I’d be happy with that.”

Born and raised in Shipley, Bradford, Nick is a prolific writer and events organiser, who has published more than sixty books, both for adults and for children, with around a million sales. In the early 1980s, he was a key figure in arranging punk and indie gigs across West Yorkshire. The after-parties always ended up at Nick’s house in Undercliffe.

“We had 7,000 people staying over the course of seven years,” he said. “My wife, Gaynor, and I never locked the door during that time. The most we ever had in one night was 36 guests, all crammed into our four-bed terrace. We would usually stop at Straws Bakery on Leeds Road, Bradford, on the way home from a gig. You would go around the back, about 2am, and this guy and his assistant would be working through the night and they liked company. Anyone who called in would get discounted food and we would take away huge trays of pastries to feed everyone at ours.”

In 1986, he and fellow performer Wild Willi Beckett - frontman of the Bradford band Psycho Surgeons - set up the first alternative cabaret club in the north of England. Nick is also a columnist and reviewer for the UK music magazine, R’n’R, and has no intention of retiring. As a performance-poet and writer-in-schools, the dad-of-two has travelled the world, working in more than 40 countries and clocking up over 5,000 educational visits to inspire the next generation.

He recalls sessions such as one 15 years ago in Newcastle for pre-school children, whose grandparents had brought them along because they remembered Nick visiting them when they were at primary school. He says: “That was one of the the first times I realised how much you can influence people. I suffer from this disease we call writing. I’ve done it every day since I was about eight, I am addicted, and that’s how I get better at it. I want to infect as many people as I can, inspire them to use language assuredly and exert their absolute right to self-expression.”

Such is his dedication to connecting with young people that Nick has become a self-taught magician and puppeteer. The grandad-of-two says: “If you’re working with children with special needs or low literacy or those who speak English as a second language, then visual elements really help. I started doing one magic trick and the kids asked for more. I can now do around 5,000.

"It was the same with puppets. I worked with a group of children who had been abused so I took along a puppet so I could talk to the puppet rather than look directly at them. The children started off sitting at the back of the room and by the end, they were all around me, two of them clinging onto my legs. I just thought, ‘This is amazing.’”

His own student experience, at the University of Birmingham, where he studied Industrial Metallurgy, provided fond memories and opportunities. “My main reason for going to university was to work at being a writer and performer,” he says. “University set the scene for the rest of my life.”

There, he co-founded a poetry magazine and, after graduating, launched his own magazine, The Little Word Machine. Staying on in Birmingham, he co-founded Moseley Community Arts Festival and started touring with his music and poetry group, The Stereo Graffiti Show. He says: “Birmingham was where I found punk. I went to see one of The Clash’s first gigs in 1976, when there were about 20 people in the crowd. The next time I saw them, there were 2,000.”

With such a colourful history, it’s no wonder Nick has more than a few tales to tell. He particularly treasures the one in which he declined to interview Blondie, when they were just starting out, having objected to a racist remark from a member of the band they were supporting. “So, I was the first UK journalist to not interview Blondie,” he jokes.

Among his achievements - too numerous to list - is a two-year stint as W.H.Smith resident storyteller at Halifax’s children’s museum, Eureka!, from 1993, along with a BAFTA nomination for a short programme on writing poetry for Channel 4’s Education series in 2000.

“I’ve been very lucky to have had a very interesting life,” he reflects. “Being able to do what I love and never having to get a ‘proper job.’"