35 things you may not know about your Bradford West candidates

We asked all local candidates in this year's General Election to tell us five interesting facts about themselves, and this is what they had to say...

• Harry appeared as an extra in series three of Shameless on Channel 4.

• He was the vice chairman of the Sahiwal (the city of his birth, twinned with Rochdale) Working Party, and accompanied one of the regular ‘Eye Camps’ in 2008 to Sahiwal. It was a very humbling experience.

• He invented ‘Curryoke’. In 1998 he was the proprietor of Tandoori Nights restaurant in Heywood. He invented the concept to ‘drum-up’ more business and it certainly did! He also held ‘Tandooried Rock’ Nights and ‘Curry & Western’ nights.

• He started Muslim Brides Dinner Club in 2005 to bring together single Muslims for marriage. He also owns www.muslimbrides.com, an online matrimonial service.

• Harry is a veteran of the Falklands and First Gulf Wars.

• George scored a goal at the Stretford End at Old Trafford from a pass by Paddy Crerand; 
   
• ​He is a Dylanologist, he has everything that Bob Dylan ever wrote, composed, recorded - and probably in triplicate. He has also covered The Times They Are A Changin' and Knocking On Heaven's Door on YouTube;
   
• George left school at 16 and started his working life making Michelin tyres in a factory in Dundee;
   
• He went swimming with Fidel Castro in Cuba;
   
• He is presently learning to play the saxophone, when he has any spare time.

• George is the great-great-great-great grandson of John Foster, the founder of the Black Dyke Mills in Queensbury and the world-famous Black Dyke Band;
   
• He used to live in Libya where he worked as the deputy-editor of the first post-Gaddafi English-language newspaper, the Libya Herald, as well as Libya Correspondent for The Times;
   
• He is married to Georgie, because he couldn’t say no to somebody else “with blonde hair, blue eyes, English, of a Conservative disposition called George!”
   
• He is a committed Christian, and believes that faith has a very important role to play in positively shaping our politics and society;
   
• In any curry-eating contest, George will always endeavour to go one hotter than you.

• Alun took up running two years ago and has done 75 5k Parkruns and a number of 10k events since, including the Bradford 10ks and City runs. He is entered in the Yorkshire Marathon in October;
   
• Alun plays rudimentary guitar and bass and sings rather better. He can often be heard singing his own songs and others as part of the ‘International Cabaret’ at the Castle Hotel;
   
• Alun is a steward at Thornton Methodist Church and has occasionally been called on to lead a ‘local arrangement’ service;
   
• Alun has a 45-year obsession with the band King Crimson and is looking forward to their UK tour in the autumn; 
   
• Alun has knitted a Clanger in memory of Oliver Postgate and contributed a knitted panel to a prize-winning art installation.

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• Celia is president of Bradford Amateur Rowing Club and an active rower; 

• She is a member of the Off Beat Dance Troupe and loves to dance at DJ Oddsox's Front Room Disco; 

• Her guilty pleasure is daily jelly beans; 

• Celia struggles to grow vegetables, they are always quite miserable specimens; 

• She enjoys wild swimming.

• Therese was born premature, to an English mother and Polish father, in a back-to-back house with an outside toilet and bathed in a tin bath in front of a coal fire at 36 Hillside Road, Barkerend;
   
• She studied theology at Durham University, and later law at Leeds University, completing her legal practice course at the College of Law, York;
   
• She has had six major operations since she was 36 - all courtesy of the NHS – and jokes that she is the 'Bionic Woman';
   
• Therese classes herself as disabled but she tries not to let this prevent her living her life as best as she can and from putting back into the community;
   
• The people that have influenced her most are Jesus, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and her favourite film is Dead Poet’s Society.

• Naz supports justice for the Palestinian people and the establishment of a Palestinian state;
   
• She wants Islamophobia to be tackled as the hate crime it is and the perpetrators punished with tough new penalties;
   
• Naz is determined to improve all local schools and give Bradford children the best start in life;
   
• She supports the NHS and will always defend and speak up for the ensuring the best healthcare is provided at both Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital;
   
• Naz supports real jobs and apprenticeships for young people in Bradford. We are a young city and we must invest in our young people.

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