76 Year Old Autistic Poet Based in Bolton Needs Your Help

Hi, my name is Brett Gregory and I've been producing charity and non-profit films and videos throughout Greater Manchester for over 20 years.

In January 2025 Peter Street from Bolton messaged me, out of the blue, on LinkedIn.

He wrote that I was the only person he’d encountered on the platform who had ‘working-class’ in their bio and, in turn, he’d recently heard about my short film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’ which was recognised as a part of Bolton Town of Culture 2024.

He then asked if I’d be interested in adapting a short story he’d written.

Since this wasn’t like one of those annoying business pitches I usually receive, I was intrigued, and so carried out a bit of research.

To my surprise I discovered in articles published by The Guardian and Bolton News that Peter, born in 1948, raised solely by his Irish Catholic mother and found to be illterate at school, was, in fact, now a published poet and memoirist .

In turn, over the decades, he'd also been a slaughterhouse worker, a gravedigger and a war poet during the Bosnian/Croatian conflict during the 1990s.

Furthermore, as well as suffering from epilepsy, and breaking his back in the 1980s, he’d been diagnosed as autistic when he was 66 years old.

My first thought was: ‘What an incredible life story!’

I replied to Peter and told him that adapting one of his short stories would involve a large number of people who would want to be paid, and it would take too much time to produce on an independent level.

Franz Kafka's 'Before the Law' took 11 months to complete, for example.

However, along with a few filmmaking friends of mine, we could instead shoot a documentary about his life in Bolton, his struggles with issues related to autism, and his poetry.

Peter was very enthusiastic about this, and agreed.

So, together with research, scriptwriting, storyboarding, and soundtrack composition, we began filming in February 2025 and completed the project in April 2025.

Collectively, this has cost us around £16,000 in terms of filming, recording, musical and editing equipment, hardware, software, labour, etc.

Moreover, Andy Blundell, who runs an incredible website called 'Landscape Britain ', helped, free of charge, to identify ideal filming locations throughout the borough.

And, in turn, Peter Firth, treasurer for the wonderful Bolton-based community arts organisation, Live from Worktown, volunteered to take on the role of narrator.

We now really need your help, however, if:

1) Peter’s life story can reach the wider audience it deserves, and be celebrated;

2) His poetry and memoirs can be read and inspire others, particularly working-class people with autism.

Therefore, we need to raise at £1,000 so we can enter the documentary into as many international film festivals as we can.

If successful, this would also make it possible for us to start producing further documentaries about working-class people on the autistic spectrum who also excel at painting, dance, photography, music etc.

Thanks for reading.

Brett