Welcome to the World of Bill Bore

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BILL BORE

Bill Bore is based on a patois-speaking opinionated individual who cornered Mike Hurley for an evening at The Churchill pub in Bradford in 1977. Think yourself lucky you weren't there.

The Official Biography

William Yorkshire Bore is a 75-year old retired insurance salesman who lives in a back to back terraced house at 27a, Inkerman Terrace, Batley, with his wife Doris. They have an only son, Raymond, who is married to Deidre, a staunch womens' libber whom Bill detests; he blames her for calling his only grandson "Damien" ("its a ruddy pouf's name - can't ever see Damien Bore opening't battin' fer Yorkshire"). Damien's best subject at school is needlecraft, thus bearing out Bill's worst fears about his grandson's persuasion.

During the war Bill was a corporal in the West Riding Signals Regiment, and saw action at Dunkirk and the Normandy landings. His best friend is Percy Johnson, whose claim to fame was coming back from Dunkirk on a pedallo. He and Bill are regulars in the snug of The Dog and Gun, where they put the world to rights with the help of Young Martin Postlethwaite, who is a foil for Bill, forwarding ecological and "right-on" issues which generally prompts a rant.

Bill Bore is the person whose eye you would least like to catch when alone in a public place - he might actually come and join you. His views, and he has them on everything, make Genghis Khan look like a Liberal Democrat ("there's nowt like eighteen inches of cold Sheffield up his jacksie to mek Johnny Foreigner see the logic of your argument" "if I ran the way women do, I'd walk everywhere" "women don't go bald because hair protects the weakest part of the body, in their case, the brain" etc.).

Bill has many dislikes: foreigners, politically-correct members of socialist councils ("they'll rename Manchester Personchester next!"), women, young people ("I died in the war for people like them") but, above all, the hated Lancastrians ("stand on the Pennines, face West, and you can smell the poverty" "anyone who'd put hotpot in their mouth knows nowt about hygiene!").

Bill's pleasures are few: give him a pint of milk stout, a pipeful of Mother Shipton's ready-rubbed shag, and an audience, and he's happy. Bill believes the old ways are the best ways, and progress is the road to oblivion; he has resisted all Batley Council's attempts to demolish his outside lavatory and replace it with one inside ("where would the rats live?!"). He remembers the time maps of the world were mostly coloured pink, he's seen us lose an Empire, he hates the Common Market and blames politicians for everything.

But despite this, there is an element of truth in a lot of what he says and many listeners ring in to agree with him ("it's dead right what Bill says - the trouble with the youth of today is they are too young!"). He may be a bigot and a bore, but he's a lovable bigot; he's a no-nonsense blunt Yorkshireman ("I calls a spade a shovel") who detests people who give theirselves airs and graces, or dress something up with long words.

And we all know someone just like Bill!

Bill Bore has won the Sony Radio Award, the industry's Oscar, as "Local Radio Personality of the Year" and has featured in commercial radio campaigns for furniture in West Yorkshire, double-glazing in East Anglia, and cars in Newcastle and London: the series for Cornes Motors featuring Bill and Joanna Lumley was voted that year's best series of commercials at the Independent Radio Awards.

Most famously, in a six-way pitch, Bill Bore was chosen to sell radio on radio for the Radio Advertising Bureau, getting a 92% recall amongst the target audience of decision makers! Advertisers like the no-nonsense approach to shifting their products, and campaigns featuring Bill Bore have been hugely successful: all the commercials are also written by Mike Hurley, who has won countless awards for his radio commercials, including a Clio and two London International Awards for "Best Copywriting".

So if you have a client that you think might appreciate being "Bored" please get in touch and we'll lay down some demos to help you close the sale.