Britain's dullest man produces calendar of his favourite roadworks

SWNS

Britain's 'dullest man' believes he has produced his most mundane calendar to date - featuring his favourite ROADWORKS.   Kevin Beresford spent several months hunting down and photographing the 12 'most riveting' road repairs carried out in his hometown over the last year.  The 71-year-old has now compiled them into a calendar called 'Roadworks of Redditch' which can be bought online for £12.50.  Kevin has found unlikely fame as the self-proclaimed 'dullest man in Britain' flogging calendars on mundane subjects like roundabouts, allotments and car parks.  But he reckons his latest calendar could be his dullest offering to date.   Kevin was inspired to produce the unusual stocking filler after repeatedly getting stuck in traffic jams due to countless roadworks in the Worcestershire town.   He says he has endeavoured to show the roadwork traffic lights all on red - because "that's the colour they always seem to be stuck on".  Kevin, who is also president of the Car Park Association Society, said: “I don’t know if it’s a boring bridge too far. I think this may be my most dullest to date.   "But I reckon people all over the UK will buy them as everyone’s been affected and irritated by roadworks  “I live on the Evesham Road in Redditch and it has to be the most dug up road on the planet.   "There’s roadworks all year round. It’s so irritating, but we’ve all been there. So it got me thinking and it inspired me to turn a negative into a positive.   “I've waited the entire year and photographed them over the last 12 months, all around Redditch.   “There's some roadworks with whole streams of traffic held up and some have got big holes dug up.   "Others look quite dynamic, with the roads blocked off, so you get a full and varied selection. The lights are all on red as that's what they are always stuck on.  "We all hate them but you’ve got to have them or the roads wouldn’t get done. It also does give work to certain people I suppose.  “My calendars are usually unique. I think it’s the first one of its kind. I like to capture the slices of English life that no one bothers with. I always focus on the mundane.  “I see it as a badge of honour being dull. I like being in the Dull Men’s Club.   "I think women like their men to be dull and I believe dull people live longer.”

Transcript

00:00 My name is Kevin Beresford and a lot of people claim that I'm the dullest man in Britain.

00:06 I don't have a problem with that and I've actually produced, I think, one of the dullest

00:10 calendars I've produced so far and that's Roadworks of Redwich.

00:15 I capture slices of English life with all my calendars that nobody else would bother

00:19 with and the one thing you can say about my dull calendars, apart from they're dull, is

00:24 they're totally unique.

00:25 Nobody's going to do Roadworks.

00:26 We're all fed up with six-pack firemen, aren't we?

00:30 And David Beckham and Cliff Richards, we're all fed up with that.

00:33 These are totally unique calendars that you can give as a gift.

00:38 I wander around Redwich and just look for inspiration in everyday things, like the allotments

00:43 of Redwich.

00:44 It all started off with Roundabouts of Redwich and I'm going back to 2003.

00:50 I was running a small printing company then.

00:52 So we produced a calendar, Roundabouts of Redwich, and it sold all around the world.

00:56 Graham Norton showed it on his show, you know.

00:59 Took the mickey out of it so we didn't mind.

01:02 And it was then that I got the idea of, you know, just, I don't know, having subjects

01:07 that are quite dull and turning them into a calendar format.

01:12 I do Prisons of England, Rubbish Dumps of England.

01:15 I even did Roadkill, a calendar which never sold.

01:21 I live on a road called Evesham Road.

01:23 It's quite a long road and it's got to be the most dug up road in Britain.

01:27 And I was, you get infuriated that in the calendar I've endeavoured to always have a

01:32 red light showing on, because that's what, everyone has a red light when you roll up

01:36 to roadworks, you never go straight through roadworks, you don't see them that way.

01:41 So I thought, there I was, stuck in traffic on this roadworks, drubbing the steering wheel

01:48 sort of thing, and I thought, I'm going to turn a negative into a positive, I'm going

01:51 to do a calendar of roadworks of reddish.

01:54 And I like that, turning negatives into positives.

01:57 And that's where it all sprung from.

02:01 I get quite a few suggestions, some of them are pretty naff.

02:05 Vanessa Phelps, I don't know if you've heard of her, she suggested speed bumps.

02:09 Yeah, but to me speed bumps are more or less all the same.

02:13 People say well roundabouts are all the same, but they're not.

02:15 There's nothing more expressive than the one way gyratory, I've seen fencing, statues,

02:20 trains, boats, planes.

02:22 There's even a working windmill up in Yorkshire producing flour.

02:25 I mean, that proves my point, anything can go on a roundabout and that's what makes them

02:30 so special.

02:33 I'm actually a member of the Dorm Men's Club, I'm the Assistant Vice President Deputy.

02:41 You can't have anything higher than Vice President in the Dorm Men's Club because that's too

02:46 exciting.

02:47 People who are working on the roadworks, for a start, they want to know what you're doing,

02:56 why you're taking pictures of us.

02:57 And when you explain I want to turn it into a calendar, you get even more weird reactions,

03:07 if you like.

03:08 When I did rubbish tips, rubbish dumps of England, you've got to be careful taking photographs

03:14 in those places because they're full of jobsworthies in high-vis jackets and the one on the front

03:20 cover of the rubbish dump, they threw me out.

03:23 That was Worcester dump, Worcester recycling plant.

03:28 They got me by the scruff of the neck and they wanted me to erase the camera, they wanted

03:33 me to erase the image and there was no way I was doing that, no way.

03:37 In Redditch I'm a bit of a Z-list celebrity, so I get approached in pubs, "Oh, you're the

03:43 roundabout man" or "You're the car park man", I get that quite often, especially in pubs,

03:48 they come up to you, as far as a bottle of drink and they're emboldened, I don't know.

03:53 I'd say I get recognised in Redditch.

03:56 I've put this place on the map, I think.

03:58 There aren't many famous people from Redditch.

04:03 As I say, Redditch is a dull town, but I actually capitalise on that image, and that's all,

04:10 roadworks of Redditch, roundabouts of Redditch, allotments of Redditch, I capitalise on that

04:18 negative image in a way and turn it into a positive.

04:21 So I think I'm doing okay for the town of Redditch.

04:24 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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