About Richard
Richard O'Neill MBE is a master storyteller brought up in the nomadic storytelling tradition he has made and continues to make a huge contribution to the art of storytelling and literacy across the world.
He is in demand as speaker, creative consultant and producer.
About Richard
Richard was born into a large family in a small mining community in the North East of England in 1962. His family travelled with the seasons all over the country. He attended a lot of schools for short periods, but even though his formal education was sporadic to say the least, he developed a love of words and a love of books.
He has been travelling ever since taking his storytelling skills around the country, winter will find him in Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne, the rest of the year telling tales and performing anywhere from Cumbria to Cornwall, Skegness to Southport, Norwich to the New Forest.
Well known for storytelling, Richard is also the author of over 30 children's books, and award winning plays for adult audiences, a number of which have been broadcast on national radio.
Richard has worked professionally with young people since 1997 in youth clubs, schools, colleges and prisons. As an entrepreneur he teaches enterprise skills to young people and adults, and has helped many people to become self employed and self sufficient. He's increasingly asked to work in companies and other organisations to help them deal with change and increase creativity.
Richard works with an ever growing and diverse clientele.
From small rural schools to the largest primary in England, secondary schools, colleges, universities, local authorities, national and local charities, libraries, towns, cities and companies of all sizes and types. He teaches storytelling skills to a range of educators and other professionals.
Richard blends the old and new producing and telling unique, exciting and original stories, workshops, books and plays for adults and children of all ages and key stages.
He has been awarded 'National Literacy Hero status'. 'Outstanding' from Ofsted for his work in schools. Beacon and Yellow Rose awards for his work in community leadership and a fellowship of social enterprise He received an MBE in the 2025 new year's honours for his contribution to education and literature.
A traditional wood carver, Richard makes all of his own resources and props for his original stories, including the much loved Pegz and Truglies, Tree Buddies and Wood Bot© His recycling and hands on skills project #Lumberjunkers teaches children of all ages recycling and woodworking skills.
He maintains that 'Story' is the beating heart of all good communication. And that its always best to undersell and over deliver rather than the other way around.
Unique projects are Richard's signature.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/storyifying-museums-richard-o-neill
Why would you want anything less for your school, museum or organisation?
Through storytelling we can create unique projects that everyone can have true ownership of, organisations can promote them in the media without fear of being told that its been done elsewhere.
Previous projects have been featured in local, regional and national press and media, including radio and TV. It's always nice for our clients to get the positive coverage they deserve.
There are too many projects to list, but here's a few; for schools, primary and secondary have included 'Freed2Read', 'Billy and Billie Book Head', international museums 'Build the Truce' ,'Tales from the Tow path' Rochdale, 'Outside-Inside' Radford primary Coventry. 'Inkredible' our history and culture of tattoos project in Leeds. 'New Pioneers' Rochdale, 'Dad's Lads and Grandads' Worcestershire and Giants of Rotherham for Rotherham museum service.
And currently our Nomadic Way curriculum which covers a range of traditional skills from outdoor cooking to enterprise and recycling all underpinned by storytelling and the ability to communicate exceptionally well.
Although our projects are as dear to us as our unique stories and books, you'll notice that we don't make a big thing about them, we prefer to let them speak for themselves, all of our time is spent on creating and delivering and not bigging them up. We're happy to talk to the media about our work, providing they don't get in our way while we're delivering them. Our focus is on clients having a fantastic experience with our projects, not about us gaining publicity.
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