Translators

Born and raised in the Skipton area, Alison Abbey relished the opportunity to be involved in this project, combining her love of translation with her interest in local history. Alison worked as a technical translator for GEC High Voltage Switchgear in Manchester in collaboration with Siemens AG for 5 years. After returning home to start a family, she continued to translate for the BSI Technical Help for Exporters Translation Service for several years before training to become a teacher of German and French, and has recently retired after 24 years of teaching at Beckfoot School.

Emily is a final-year undergraduate student of French and German. In her final year she has chosen to focus on translation in both French and German, and to write her dissertation about POW camps in the First World War, so she feels that the opportunity to improve her translation skills whilst enhancing her research by translating such a fascinating piece of work from this period of history is really a privilege. In her free time she enjoys  being involved in the athletics and kickboxing societies at University, and never misses a chance to discover a new city.

David is a postgraduate student on the MA in Applied Translation at the University of Leeds.

Lucy is a third-year undergraduate student in German and Linguistics. She has been fascinated by this particular research project not only due to its significance in local history, but also due to its strong community focus: translated by the community, for the community. She is honoured to have been part of the process, and is particularly grateful for the opportunity to use and improve her translation skills while contributing to making something of such local importance accessible for all. Currently living in the Austrian alps, she enjoys hiking and skiing in her free time.

Anne is a Lecturer in German and Translation Studies at the University of Leeds. She has lived in Skipton since 2002 so has a particular local interest in the project. In her spare time she enjoys running and cycling in the Yorkshire Dales.

Ryan is a postgraduate student on the MA in Applied Translation.  Born and raised in Burnley, just over the Yorkshire-Lancashire border from Skipton, he feels privileged to be involved in this project which combines his local pride with his love for all things language-related.  He hopes to pursue a career as a professional translator after the completion of his Masters, and in his spare time he enjoys travel, exploring European cinema and following his beloved Burnley FC around the country.

Ken Cockburn is a freelance poet, translator, editor and writing tutor based in Edinburgh. Formerly Fieldworker and Assistant Director at the Scottish Poetry Library, he has wide experience of running poetry sessions for children and adults in a range of settings, indoor and outdoor. His published translations include poems by Thomas Brasch, Christine Marendon, Arne Rautenberg and Thomas Rosenlöcher, some of which are collected in the book Feathers & Lime (2007); and fiction by Christopher Ecker. His translations of Arne Rautenberg’s poems were collected as Snapdragon (2012), and a volume of translations of Christine Marendon is forthcoming from Carcanet. He has been commended twice in the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation.

Emily is a final-year undergraduate student in English and German.  Taking a particular interest in the study of English and German literature, she is delighted to be involved in the process of making this fascinating and insightful diary available to an English-speaking readership.  In her spare time, she enjoys reading, travel and going to live music events.

Nigel is a retired business school professor with appointments in the UK, Denmark and Germany, concluding his career as an honorary research fellow at Leeds University Business School (2011-2016). His specialisations include cross-cultural management, business history, management development in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia, and management terminology in various languages. In autumn 2015 he spent a month at the University of Regensburg as a Visiting Professor. During 2015 and 2016 he has gave seminars on intercultural business communication at the University of Munich. In 2017 he published the first biography in English of the aviator and aircraft builder, Gerhard Fieseler (1896-1987), whose company created the famous Storch reconnaissance plane and the V-1 flying bomb.

Lauren is a first year undergraduate student of German and Russian. She has a keen interest in translation and is excited to be involved in making the book accessible to an English-speaking audience. In her spare time, Lauren enjoys running and baking.

Catriona is a final-year undergraduate student of French and German, who, having grown-up just over the border in Lancashire, thoroughly enjoys both German and French translation and has a keen interest in German history. Alongside her degree, she enjoys travelling and discovering new cultures and cuisines.

Mhairi is an undergraduate student in German in her final year. She is interested in German history, and takes a particular interest in individuals' experiences of past events. In her spare time, she enjoys life-drawing and reading.

York-born Hilary is a Teaching Fellow in German to English translation at the University of Leeds. Her current research focuses on cultural memory and remembering. She also has experience in the translation industry so the Skipton diary project is giving her the opportunity to combine her two interests.

Alan has lived in Barnoldswick, a small town near Skipton, for over thirty years. He taught Science at a secondary school in Burnley. At the same time he was able to study for a part-time degree in German in Leeds. Following the closure of his school he worked as a freelance scientific and technical translator for several years.

Sabine is a former grammar school teacher from Germany (subjects English, Danish and French). During a sabbatical in 2015/16, she studied for a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Translation at the University of Leeds, where she participated in the Skipton POW translation project. Sabine now works in Glasgow as the Goethe Institute’s deputy director and head of the language department. In her spare time she likes rowing, theatre and collecting languages.

Toni is a final-year undergraduate student in German at the University of Leeds. Enthusiastic about history and literary translation, she jumped at the chance to be able to combine the two whilst translating Kriegsgefangen in Skipton. In her spare time she enjoys drinking copious amounts of tea and reads widely: she has recently enjoyed reading Helen Forrester's memoirs of growing up in Liverpool during the Great Depression.

Charlotte is studying translation from German and French into English on the MA Applied Translation Studies course. She is enjoying exploring the unique insight the diary offers into the POWs’ experiences, as well as the opportunity to experiment with literary translation, which she is considering as a career path. Outside of her studies, Charlotte is a keen baker and can often be found causing chaos in the kitchen.

Caroline is a Lecturer in Comparative Literary Translation at the University of Leeds; her research focuses on contemporary German literature and the translation of authorship. She has experience as a freelance translator and an interest in local history.

Matthew is a third year German and International Relations student currently living in Munich during his year abroad. He has really enjoyed tackling the translations and building on his translation skills developed at university. The historical insight gained from Kriegsgefangen in Skipton has also particularly fascinated him, as it is something rarely covered in history lessons. In his spare time, Matthew enjoys playing the saxophone and rustling something up in the kitchen, and maybe a Weißbier or two while in Bavaria!

Sue Vickerman is a self-employed poet, writer, translator and editor. To date her major poetry translation project has been an Arts Council funded year translating her East German peer, the poet and award-winning novelist Kathrin Schmidt. Some of these translations have been published by no-mans-land.org. Previous awards by the Arts Councils of England and Scotland have supported Sue’s poetry and prose-writing. Sue’s publications include five poetry collections and three works of fiction. Born in Bradford, Sue is (after 36 addresses across three continents) settled for now in Settle, near Skipton. suevickerman.eu

Ada Whitaker taught students of English at Hamburg University for many years, the teaching including literature and translation, and she has also translated a number of academic books on literature and on sociology. After retiring and settling part-time in Keighley, where she grew up, she was delighted to find a project that could make use of her German skills, as well as offering a wonderful opportunity to learn new things about her native area.

Hannah is a final year undergraduate student of French and German. She has chosen to focus her degree primarily on translation and history, particularly of the two World Wars, so the Skipton project combines two key passions for her. She feels very excited to have the privilege to work on such an interesting project, which is so key to local history. In her spare time, Hannah enjoys travel and getting lost in a good book.

Hannah is a postgraduate student currently working towards her MA in Conference Interpreting and Translation Studies, and works from German and French into English. Having studied English and German as an undergrad, she is enjoying her return to literary translation with the Skipton diaries, and hopes she’ll be lucky enough to work on many more translation projects as interesting as this in the future.

Sheila Goodhall, Keith Bradshaw, Alison Tyas, Keith Hewitt, Peter Beech and David Hall.