Emma Sayer joined HLF East Midlands in April 2006 as the team’s new Regional Manager. After reading Russian and Serbo-Croat at Nottingham University, Emma spent 10 years in the Army, serving in a variety of peacekeeping missions across the Balkans and with international missions in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. She joined English Nature in 2000.
Her interest in heritage started at an early age: “I grew up in the midst of Cornwall’s tin-mining heritage. My favourite walk was along part of the north Cornish coast path leading up to Wheal Coates tin mine, near St Agnes. It made me curious about what life in Cornwall had been like in the heyday of the mining industry; how people lived and worked in such harsh conditions. I wanted to learn about their stories and their past.
‘I still have a keen interest in our industrial past which is why coming to work for the Heritage Lottery Fund in the East Midlands is such a privilege. Everything from pumping stations to mills, lace factories and mines, to name but a few of this region’s wealth of industrial heritage gems, fascinates me.