Nick Booker (BCom Industrial Economics and Business Studies, 1974)

Consultants never retire…I’m a trustee and fund raising lead for The Brunel Swivel Bridge Group in Bristol, a volunteer-led charitable organisation dedicated to saving, conserving and restoring Brunel’s historic 1849 Swivel Bridge at Bristol’s Cumberland Basin.

Featuring a technologically innovative hand-riveted wrought-iron structure and an intact Victorian hydraulic turning mechanism it predates the Clifton Suspension Bridge and is on Historic England’s ‘At Risk’ register.

Our aim is to return the bridge to working condition as a pedestrian and cycle crossing and celebrated heritage asset, hopefully in time for the bridge’s 180th anniversary in 2029. 

I was born in Bristol – hence the connection with the Brunel Swivel Bridge project - worked in London and later graduated with a BCom from Birmingham University in 1974. Happy days in Strathcona and other places on the campus!

For the last 25 years of my career – I’m now retired – I was a strategic business consultant working on projects in tourism and visitor attractions. During that time I was a trustee for some nine years of The Postal Museum in London and Vice Chairman of the Coventry Heritage & Arts Trust.