OTLEY'S Bellman has excelled at another town crier competition.

Terry Ford won an earlier contest, the Halifax Woolshops Town Crier Competition, outright in May.

This time, taking part in the Loyal Company of Town Criers British Championships in Biddulph on Saturday, he has had to settle for second place.

Mr Ford, who was up against 14 other criers from around the country, said: "The criers were required to perform two separate themed cries during the day and were judged on five different disciplines: confidence and bearing, diction and inflection, volume and clarity, content of cry and engaging the public audience.

"With a combined total of 50 marks per cry, in total I came away with a score of 89.7 – only half-a-point behind the winner.

"In fact, such was the quality of the competition only one point separated the first three criers, and I was delighted to achieve second place in what was a hard-fought competition between many of the finest town criers in Britain."

Mr Ford also achieved second place in the Loyal Company of Town Criers contest in Lichfield on July 2.

He will be back in action again this weekend when he competes in the Middlewich Town Crier Competition on Saturday.