Alan Durband pounds by means of innovative seven-year tax-free covenants for the conversion of the building. It was a popular theatre specialising in local Liverpool settings & political subjects which gave opportunities to new playwrights – most famous of whom is probably Willy Russell (to whom Durband lent his Welsh cottage to write 'Educating Rita') and to actors such as: Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce & Julie Walters who joined the Theatre company around 1975. To mark this era, Willy Russell unveiled a plaque in memory of Alan Durband at the theatre in 1998 in the company of actor Pete Postlethwaite
Ted Valentine took a class. He began refereeing at kids games, later moving up to junior high and high school games. In 1981, he attended a refereeing camp in Bristol, Connecticut run by NBA Hall of Fame member Dallas Shirley. While there, he poured out a cooler of ice water from a window onto sunbathers below the window. Shirley threw Valentine out of the camp for the stunt. A few months later, Shirley offered him a job as a referee. Valentine worked his first NCAA Division I basketball game in 1981 at the former Baptist College, now Charleston Southern University. He was