AT the age of 46, Blackburn-born poet Mark Ward has had more experiences than most will in their lifetimes.

He’s worked on an Alaskan radio show for the blind, built film sets for Oliver Reed in Africa, and worked on a production company in New Zealand.

He’s also a world expert in the Bronte sisters and has published six collections of poetry.

Now he’s returned to his humble roots to publish his seventh collection of poetry, Thunder Alley, inspired by the town in which he grew up.

“I’m very fond of Blackburn,” said Mark.

“It keeps pulling me back. I’ve been around the world, but there’s no place quite like it.”

Thunder Alley, Sonnets and other Poems, explores contemporary Blackburn, as well as the Blackburn of his youth.

Many of the poems in the book — named after a former town centre street — refer to characters from his childhood in Revidge, such as neighbours Mr Mercer and Mr Brown.

“Having travelled a lot, when I started thinking about Blackburn for the book. I saw it in a different perspective from when I lived here,” said Mark.

“Some of it’s quite graphic, particularly the poem ‘home-grown’ which is about suicide bombers. But I never saw the point of pouring sugar over things.

“Poetry is all about expressing a part of the world we live in and making a record — so you have to be honest about it otherwise there’s no point.”

In another poem, ‘Oh, and by the way . . .’ he talks about the Blackburn accent.

“I like you; I like the sound of your voice: The deep resonance of your earthy vowels,” it begins.

“That poem was written because, wherever I am pretty much, someone will be from Blackburn,” said Mark. “They’re like grains of sand, people from Blackburn. They’re scattered all over the place.”

The former St Edmund Arrowsmith School — now St Bede’s RC High — pupil left the town in 1980, aged 18, to ride to Africa on a motorbike.

“There was a recession and nothing much was happening in Blackburn so I rode my motorbike from Blackburn to Cape Town and ended up spending two years in Africa.

“I worked building film sets in for a while. The most famous was The Fall of the House of Usher with Oliver Reed. He was a massive bear of a man with huge chest and piercing blue eyes. He was quite bonkers and drunk all the time.

“He had cultivated this image of himself and had to live up to it, I think.”

Next Mark took a job on an Alaskan radio show.

“They liked my accent. They said I sounded like John Lennon so I got a show on a station for the blind.

Mark also worked on a tuna boat, for a New Zealand production company and travelled to Kashmir.

Thunder Alley was written over two years at The Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, where Mark is resident.

During that time he won an Arts Council writer’s award to help fund it.

“I’ve always been curious about what the rest of the world has to offer,” admitted Mark.

“But I’m more settled now than I have been in a long time and my work here suits me pretty well.

“Although don’t let anybody tell you writing poetry is easy. It’s 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent really hard work.”

l Thunder Alley, published by Aussteiger Publications, is on sale now in bookshops and from Aussteiger on aussteiger_211@hotmail.com