Member Article

Middlesbrough author to get international audience thanks to Enterprise Europe Network

A Middlesbrough author’s tales of oil rig workers and a friendly seal are to be heard in Norway thanks to a European networking organisation.

Teesside University is the lead partner in the Enterprise Europe Network North East and was able to use its extensive network of contacts to find a Norwegian translator and publisher for Peter Brunton’s series of children’s stories about Sally the Oil Rig Seal.

Peter a former oil rig worker, originally wrote the stories in the early Nineties about a seal which regularly visited the rig he was stationed on based in the North Sea off Aberdeen.

When he retired from working on the oil rigs in 2009 he decided to publish the two books, ‘Sally the Oil Rig Seal’ and ‘Sally to the Rescue’, which quickly became extremely popular in Middlesbrough and the surrounding area, selling out quickly.

Peter thought that the books would also be popular in Norway, particularly in Stavanger, and so turned to EEN for help.

He said: “When I was working out in the North Sea, on another rig based off the shores of the Shetland Islands, I could see the flares from the Norwegian rigs - I realised there was lots of Norwegian rig workers doing the same job I was doing.

“I know a lot of the oil rig workers on Teesside gave copies of the books to their children while they were working away and the children found it quite comforting to know what their parents were up to.

“It struck me that there was probably a market for the stories in Norway as so many of the experiences would be the same.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .