Our guest speaker for February was Nat Biney. We first came across Nat in 2004 at Starting Point where Frankie was doing some teaching and assessment for The Gateway Project (refugee children from The Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia). Nat appeared one day, complete with drums, African maracas and bells and the result was the children were absolutely spellbound. Here was someone they could relate to.
Since those days we have seen Nat off and on in various places and realised here was someone really interesting – hence asking him to come and talk to The Soroptimists.
Nat was born in Ghana in 1946 into a royal family – his grandfather was chief of his tribe and had many children. Nat’s father was a herbalist and was keen that his children received a good education. Nat did well at school and decided he wanted to go into the textile industry. He won a scholarship to Bolton Institute of Higher Education which was and still is, well known for the work done on textiles. Then Nat had to look for work. The mills were closing down so there were no jobs to be had in the textile industry. On a whim he went round to Warburtons and was lucky enough to secure employment there. He worked at Warburtons for twenty years. He became very fond of Bolton and made many friends.
Now Nat is involved in many spheres of life in Bolton and sits on many committees. He is a JP and has been awarded an MBE, Heart of Gold Award. As he said to us – Bolton has been very good to me, I feel I want to do something for the people here. Next year Nat will have to retire from the Bench and he is contemplating retiring to Ghana. If he does, Bolton will be losing someone very special.
We enjoyed Nat’s talk and even had the opportunity to play his drums, maracas and bells. It was brilliant!