Christened Jack Anthony Daniels in Brighton on England’s South Coast in 1954. Jack grew up 200 miles north in the small Lancashire town of Barnoldswick. ‘Good at Drawing’ Jack attended Bradford Art College 1970-74 where following a Foundation Year, he studied Interior Design and left with a Diploma and a job having been poached by City of Bradford Architects Department who formed an Interior Design Department where Jack designed the furniture for the first purpose built school for the hearing impaired and developed a modular school furniture system. “Education was the client and the design work was constant and varied”.

In 1980 Jack joined Barratt Shoes Shop fitting Department managing a chain of 350+ stores re-fits and re-furbishments, new store fit-outs and concessions “They had stores in every part of the UK and when not shop fitting we handled the general maintenance of the stores” Based in Bradford central to the UK in 1989 Jack branched out on his own and formed shop-fitting contractors EuroShopfitters UK Ltd whose clients included Swinton Insurance, Superdrug, Mackays Stores and JD Sports “It was a ‘one man band’ at first made possible by the newly introduced mobile phone which meant you could work whilst travelling. There’s 5 days in the working week and I often had 5 sites in progress, attending to all by phone whilst travelling between them”.

Homework’s UK Ltd receivership in June 2001 at the end of EuroShopfitters fit-out of their new store in Kendal eventually led to voluntary liquidation of the company in 2002. Jack was immediately asked to project manage the installation of lifts in Mackays (M&Co) Stores… “The chairman Iain McGeough was a visionary he saw his customers pushing prams as mobility impaired so he installed lifts to re-located Children’s Departments. I would fly Leeds Bradford to Glasgow for the Monday progress meetings then fly Glasgow EasyJet to Bristol, hire a car for a couple of days, site surveying lift travel distances, staying in Travel Inns then get a flight from Southampton to Aberdeen, to spend the day surveying the Aberdeen store then back to Leeds Bradford, where the car was left on Monday morning. It was distances you’d spend all week driving” It took 5 years to install 55 platform and passenger lifts from Lerwick, Shetland, to Liskeard, Cornwall. “I got to the point where with a tape measure, an A4 pad, a scale ruler and a biro I could diagram and cartoon the whole operation” When British Gas hiked energy costs over 30% in June 2007 it was terminal for many branches and Mackays ceased development works and focused more online in January 2008.

In April 2008 Jack joined Claremont Interiors in Warrington and Project Managed the centennial re-furbishment of the Royal Liver Building. The Liverpool landmark was 100 years old in 2012. Floor 9 Core was the first phase completed in 2008 ”When stripping out back to the shell we kept opening old lift landings with no doors and suddenly exposed open drops so it was hazardous but when completed in 2011 enormously satisfying” Jack formed his own consultancy Jack Pearce Daniels Consulting Ltd in 2013 and has been engaged since on major projects locally – Project Planner on a new office building and research facility for Johnson & Johnson, De Puy Synthes in Beeston, Leeds. The new Harrogate Borough Council Headquarters in 2017, Finishing Manager for Harry Fairclough Construction and Project Manager on extension buildings for Rolls Royce turbofan manufacture in Barnoldswick for Mitie “I was back in my home town where my Grandfather had turned bolts for the Merlin’s. I spent my early childhood at 4 Weets View a stone throw from the factory where the jet engine was born”.

Jack discovered his biological father was Billy Daniels when his mother revealed his identity on the eve of Jacks first trip to the US with his wife Jane in 1995 “My life changed at 40 when my mother told me of their 3 year relationship before they drifted apart…I had to find out all I could about my father” Contacting Perri his father’s widow via the Church of the Good Shepherd where his father was buried Jack visited Perri in La Costa, Carlsbad, California “I was lucky he was in show-business so my father’s working life was documented. Perri graciously loaned me my father’s archive. When you’re researching you need to cross reference so a book developed and I ended up spending four years writing it and I still don’t know what to call it!”