News – October 2021

Advanced Passenger Train article in Best of British magazine

This month I’ve got an article in Best of British magazine about the Advanced Passenger Train (A.P.T). The APT ran from the late seventies to mid eighties and used a revolutionary tilting system to maintain its speed around bends. It was withdrawn quietly from service after just two sets were built.

The technology was sold FIAT’s rail division and years later sold back to the UK as the Pendolino 390, which even after nearly twenty years in service still looks space-age. I took a trip on one from Lichfield to Stafford.

I also spoke to members of the RailUk forum who rode on the original APT and include their memories.

Best Of British October issue out now (30/09/20)

News – August 2021

Above – Battle Headquarters near Market Harborough

This month I’ve got a major five page feature in ‘Britain at War’ magazine on pillboxes, I go into the history of them and talk about a few I visited and photographed, including the impressive underground battle headquarters shown above. They are getting demolished by builders of new houses as surprisingly they aren’t protected by law. Some however have been reporsed as bat boxes giving a dark safe place for wild bats.

I’ve also written a few pieces of commercial copy as a ghost writer but as its attributed to the company you’ll have to trust me on that one!

News – May 2021

This month (May21) a major new attraction is opening in Ambergate, Derbyshire, Great British Car Journey and its sister attraction Drive Dad’s Car Experience is an interactive experience showing the history of British Car manufacturers and then allows you to drive some of the cars.

I went for a pre-opening chat with man behind it Richard Usher and a tour around the site. My feature ‘All Roads Lead To Ambergate’ is in this month’s Derbyshire Life Magazine.

Austin 7
Me in the MGB GT available to drive at Ambergate

Recently I read a couple of books on Kindle by Bestselling indie author Keith A Pearson. He self publishes as both e-books on Amazon and paperbacks. He has written twelve books and has sold 200,000 copies. He writes full time. I sought him out for an interview. You can read that interview at http://everybodysreviewing.blogspot.com/2021/05/interview-with-keith-pearson.html

The cover Keith’s debut novel The ’86 Fix

News – March 2021

I started my feature writing at a cycling website https://veloballs.com/ in 2013. I wrote articles for them for many years, in 2020 it took a short hiatus but has relaunched this year with all the original content back on the site.

The Editor got in touch and asked me if I’d like to write some more content for the site. I jumped at the chance, my first post was a slightly tongue in cheek news item about a new cycling shoe from Adidas https://veloballs.com/adidas-velo-samba-cycling-shoe-so-cool-its-frightening/ which I enjoyed writing but then I did some real journalism for the site and interviewed (by email of course) an Italian graphic artist Gianluca Gimini who had done some impossible bike designs based on sketches from the public read my interview here…. https://veloballs.com/velocipedia-extreme-cycle-art/

Image courtesy of MONA – Photographer – Jesse Hunniford, Curator – Pippa Mott.   

News – February 2021

This month (February 2021) I’m on the Newsstands in two different magazines. Best of British have an article of mine about Routemaster Buses. I go into the history and last summer I visited AROUTE2HIRE in Northampton which own three examples.

Sea Breezes Magazine have an article about The Annexation of Rockall and My Uncle’s part in it when he was a stoker aboard HMS Vidal

My Uncle John is in the centre of this photo and below that is one of HMS Vidal

Online Portfolio

I’m a freelance features journalist, I’ve written articles and content for several magazines including, Derbyshire Life, Cycling Active, Best of British and Writing Magazine. I have also blogged for the HuffPost and two blogs of my own.

Here are links for two articles of mine in The Derbyshire Life

https://www.derbyshirelife.co.uk/out-about/places/derbyshire-stone-circles-1-6874626

https://www.derbyshirelife.co.uk/out-about/places/old-churches-in-derbyshire-1-6911991

And here’s the links to my blogs

https://veloballs.com/velocipedia-extreme-cycle-art/

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/simon-elson/

https://tour-de-stuff.blogspot.com/

http://simonelson.blogspot.com/

Wherever possible I use my own photos taken on a Nikon DSLR. The above are a few random examples of my work. The photo of a local malting building on fire was used in the Derby Telegraph as I was one of the first photographers on the scene.

My skills areas are History/Nostalgia, UK Travel/Tourism. Retail/Sales, Technology and Health/Fitness. I have also written sponsored content reviews for my blogs.

In addition to the above I’ve published an Amazon E-book Bestseller – Sugar Beat a Health and lifestyle book.

http://tinyurl.com/SugarBeatBook

I obviously pitch my own ideas to editors but if you feel I can write a specific article for you then please contact me, anything from a few hundred words to two-thousand plus would be considered.

Contact me at simonelson1968@gmail.com