A MAN from East Yorkshire is set to take on the best town criers in the world at an international competition this summer.

Geoff Sheasby has been Pocklington’s town crier since 2001, and is preparing to take part in the World Town Crier Championships in Chester this August.

Geoff, 64, will square up to 24 entrants from 10 countries around the world - including USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Holland, Wales, the Channel Islands and Ireland - in a week-long tournament for the title.

Geoff said: “It’s an immense privilege to have been invited to participate in the world championships.

“It will be a fantastic experience.

Diane, my wife, will be in eighteenth-century costume accompanying and supporting me as my escort. It’s undoubtedly my greatest challenge to date in the 14 years that I have been privileged to promote Pocklington as town crier and I will be fully psyched up for the contest.”

The competition, which runs over several days in August, is made up of three cries to be judged by an independent panel. The first cry will be to extol the virtues of the crier’s home town, but the remaining two have yet to be announced.

Geoff said the winning crier will simply not be the one who shouts the loudest: “We will be marked in these stages according to our performance.

“It is not simply bellowing - in fact if inaudibility is perceived through sheer volume, we will be marked down.”

Geoff is also set to take part in the Royal Company of Town Criers British Championship in Banbury in September - a competition he hopes to attend as world champion.

He said: “I could say it keeps me off the streets but of course just the opposite is the case.

“I can assure the Pocklington populace that I will do my best to represent them to the utmost of my abilities. It is a massive privilege to be able to represent our wonderful town on both a global and national stage.”