Jeremy Blackmore

Freelance journalist | Editor | Copywriter | Public relations

Award-shortlisted freelance journalist

Hi, I'm Jeremy. Welcome to my journalism portfolio. Here you'll find examples of my work and the services I offer.

About me

NCTJ qualified (National Council for the Training of Journalists), I've worked as a chief reporter and news editor on regional newspapers, covering stories ranging from election campaigns, council debts and nurses' strikes to visiting the Falkland Islands with the Royal Engineers.

I cover cricket and other sports for regional, national and international titles. As well as regular match reports, news stories, interviews and retrospectives, I write in-depth features examining key issues facing sport.

My other passions are music, film, television and theatre. I contribute to a number of magazines and newspapers, interviewing new and established artists and looking back over key moments in musical history. Anything involving the Beatles will always spark my interest.

With a strong understanding of a good story and plenty of curiosity, I enjoy covering a wide range of other stories. I can write short, snappy news copy as well as in-depth features.

Do you need help with public relations? I've delivered press office and crisis response services for high-profile public sector organisations. Roles also included editing and writing for corporate in-house and business-to-business magazines.

All good communications though, starts with a good plan. I'm passionate about helping organisations improve the way they engage with their customers, media and stakeholders to better support their objectives.

In the end, what I do comes back to telling compelling stories. If I can help, please get in touch.

Featured Articles

Explore a featured selection of my recent work below.

Stereoboard.com •

Richard Hawley: Kindness as an Act of Resistance

Sheffield is in Richard Hawley’s DNA, his albums infused with the indefatigable spirit of the proud northern industrial city even as he plays music inspired by American rock and roll, country, bluegrass and gospel.

While many of his albums have borne the names of its landmarks, it is from the camaraderie and resolve of the place’s people that the songwriter draws the most inspiration. His latest release, 'In This City They Call You Love', takes its name from a familiar term of endearment, so commonplace in Sheffield, but something that nevertheless gives Hawley hope.

He expands on the sentiment during People, effectively the title track on an album of beautifully crafted songs reminiscent of his early solo work. It serves as a love letter to fellow Sheffielders, an acoustic ballad built around a phrase he overheard walking past people sitting outside a bar.
Stereoboard.com •

'I Enjoyed the Heck Out of It': Reflecting on The Beach Boys With The Beach Boys

For more than half a century The Beach Boys have represented the endless sound of summer against a backdrop of the Californian surf, set to some of the most gloriously transcendent harmonies ever committed to tape. In a remarkable run of success that produced some of the 60s’ most memorable and beloved hit singles, the band also produced one of that decade’s most revered albums in ‘Pet Sounds’, one that rivalled even The Beatles in ambition and creativity.

But their story is also one of family, once combined in harmony, later fractured, and of tragedy, with the early deaths of two original members. With the surviving Beach Boys now entering their 80s, it’s fitting their lasting legacy is being celebrated with two new landmark projects – their only official book, The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys, and a documentary simply called The Beach Boys, which streams on Disney+ and reunites the band in a coda, made even more poignant given legendary composer Brian Wilson’s recent diagnosis with a “major neurocognitive disorder”.
The Cricket Paper •

Bravo to Emilio Gay, inspiring the next generation

Jeremy Blackmore on a cricketer with a unique background who is hoping to use his profile to help others
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE BATTER Emilio Gay knows all about the power of inspiring young players after a meeting with his hero, West Indies superstar Dwayne Bravo, fuelled his cricketing passions as a teenager.
Bravo took time out from preparations for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean to sign a shirt for an awestruck Gay and it is a memory that has stayed with the 24-year-old ever since. Now Gay, whose father’s family are Grenadian, is hoping he can in turn help inspire a new generation.
Stereoboard.com •

Rhythm, Playfulness: William Doyle On 'Springs Eternal' - Stereoboard

‘Springs Eternal’, the new album from William Doyle, is imbued with a playfulness, a lightness of touch, revealing an artist unafraid to have fun even as the characters in his songs drown in the chaos of an uncertain world. It’s a vibrant, pulsating, euphoric ride that fizzes with a greater focus on rhythm than Doyle’s recent works. It’s a spirit founded, ironically, on a sense of artistic loss during the making of Doyle’s last album, 2021’s critically acclaimed ‘Great Spans of Muddy Time’. Then, all his initial embryonic melodies were lost in a catastrophic hard drive failure, forcing him to rebuild the album from a series of cassette tape recordings – the only copies that still existed.

It was an experience that proved freeing for a self-professed perfectionist and if ‘Great Spans…’ was minimalist by necessity, its successor is ambitious in scope and finds him at his most confident and assured, delivering the strongest vocal performances of his career.
Stereoboard.com •

Celestial Candyfloss and French Electricity: Gruff Rhys Takes Another Leap Into The Unknown

Gruff Rhys’s career has been defined by a constant quest to explore, to discover how different environments can forge new sounds. That ongoing musical pursuit even extended to mastering his latest recordings in Paris to test a theory that electricity in different locations drives equipment in unique ways. Those tracks make up ‘Sadness Sets Me Free’, the latest album in the former Super Furry Animals frontman’s wide and varied career. It’s been a 35-year journey taking in early days in Welsh language band Ffa Coffi Pawb to collaborating with artists as diverse as Boom Bip (as half of Neon Neon), Gorillaz, Mogwai and Paul McCartney, as well as writing the libretto for a Stephen McNeff opera.
The Cricketer •

Red Hot Rew

Teenage batting sensation James Rew’s ambitions were modest when he began Somerset’s Championship season: simply to keep the wicket-keeping gloves and stay in the team.

Three months on as the backbone of his county’s batting and a thousand runs to his name, he is still finding things hard to process. “I never thought I’d be sitting here as leading run scorer in Division One,” he exclaims. “Not a chance. It’s so weird!”

His emergence has had purists purring and statisticians rewriting the record books. But while his sheer weight of runs has garnered headlines, it is how he’s accumulated them which has earned him admirers and seen him widely tipped as a future England candidate.

Like many left-handers Rew, 19, makes batting look effortless, driving exquisitely, showing clinical precision in the way he times and places the ball. But there’s a solid defence too and an ability to play off front or back foot.

More than that is what his coach Jason Kerr calls his superpower: an ability to stay in the moment, keep things simple and play each ball on its merits. ‘Mature beyond his years’ is a phrase you hear most when you speak to those who know Rew best, although a cheeky, boyish grin quickly gives away his age.
The Cricketer •

Revolution in the second city

In the last of his retrospective series around the 18 counties, Jeremy
Blackmore asks Neil Smith, Tim Munton, Andy Moles and Paul Smith about
Warwickshire’s unparalleled cross-format domination in the mid-1990s

Masterminded by innovators Bob Woolmer and Dermot Reeve, Warwickshire dominated county cricket in the mid-1990s, writing themselves into the history books with an unprecedented treble in 1994 and following it with a double in 1995.

A competitive Bears squad were boosted by two of the greatest overseas stars. Brian Lara amassed over 2,000 runs in their 1994 Championship success including a world-record 501 not out – not to mention six centuries in seven innings. Allan Donald spearheaded the attack in 1995 with 88 Championship wickets at just 15.48.
The New European •

Vive Le Style Council! (PDF)

As the long hot summer of 1983 dawned, Paul Weller was in Paris, soaking up the culture and sound of the Left Bank and preparing to
reinvent himself.

Hailed today as a musical chameleon never afraid to leave his comfort zone, Weller had shown the first signs of his need to move on by splitting the Jam at the height of their fame. If that distressed fans of the Mod icon, even more shocking was what was to come as he emerged with a new band – the Style Council – a new sound and a new look.

Nearly four decades on, we can see how radical a change it was – and how Weller astutely turned his focus from strife-torn, divided Britain to a new optimism defined by Europe. Out went the Union Jack iconography and guitar-driven songs influenced by the Beatles, Kinks and Small Faces. In came a continental approach to clothes, artwork and music, drawing inspiration from La Nouvelle Vague, modern jazz and composers like Ravel and Debussy as well as American gospel and soul.

Forming the Style Council with keyboardist Mick Talbot, the pair bonded over a love of Michel Legrand soundtracks, French fashion and Rive Gauche cafe culture, far from the suburban streets of Woking and south London where the pair had grown up.
The New European •

Band on the Run: Paul McCartney’s 1972 European mystery tour (PDF)

Later this month, Paul McCartney will become the oldest performer to headline Glastonbury as, just days after his 80th birthday, he rolls out Beatles and solo classics to an audience of 100,000 and millions watching live on TV. Fifty years ago, though, with a couple of vans, children and dogs in tow, McCartney was setting off with his new band to realise a dream he’d had in the dying days of the Beatles, to play small venues and rediscover the love of playing live.