Former teacher takes over as Ribble Valley’s new Mayor

Hurst Green and Whitewell ward’s Cllr Jan Alcock was born and brought up in the Ribble Valley and attended St Mary’s Primary School in 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.

For more than 40 years, she has volunteered at Clitheroe’s Cancer Research shop, where she now counts some of the shop’s regular bargain‑hunters as friends.

Cllr Alcock joined Ribble Valley Council as representative for Aighton, Bailey and Chaigley — now Hurst Green and Whitewell — more than 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.

Cllr Alcock 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 a six‑foot gas canister at Primrose Lodge Nature Reserve in Clitheroe.

She received her civic chains at a ceremony in the Ribble Valley Borough Council chamber on Tuesday.

The mayor’s chosen charities are the Ribble Rivers Trust and Cancer Research UK, and Cllr Alcock’s mayoress is her sister, Dr Alison Brown.