An AWARD-wining poet, a heraldry expert and a former adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair are among the latest new entries of Who’s Who from Carlisle.

The latest edition of the ‘Bible’ of the most prominent people in the country, contains more than 34,000 autobiographical details of those referred to as “noteworthy and influential people in every area of public life”.

Listing in the heavyweight book is by invitation only and to be included is regarded as an honour.

The new entries include Carlisle-born Calthwaite-based Christopher Fletcher-Vane.

The 65-year-old is an Old Etonian, a heraldry expert and former barrister who has been Chester Herald of Arms since 2017.

Mr Fletcher-Vane is also Portcullis Pursuivant at the College of Arms, and received an annual salary of £13.95.

Professor Jacob Polley, 43, is a freelance writer and professor of creative writing at the University of Newcastle.

A multi-award-winning poet, he has published four collections of poetry. His novel, Talk of the Town, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2009. His latest poetry collection, Jackself, won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2016

Less grand, but still worth mentioning, is the fact that he was also once poet in residence for our sister paper, the News & Star.

The third Carlisle-born entry in the reference book is Fergus Drake.

The 44-year-old father of four is chief executive of Crown Agents, a not-for-profit international development company with head office in the United Kingdom. Its main focus is to help governments around the world to increase prosperity, reduce poverty and improve health

In his Who’s Who entry, Mr Drake lists his recreations as “travelling the world,arthouse cinema,losing at chess to my children”.

In 2006-2007 Mr Drake was ‘Governance and Delivery Adviser ‘ to prime minster Tony Blair.

Mr Drake has spent over two decades working on humanitarian and development programmes around the world and before joining Crown Agents, he was Executive Director of Global Programmes for Save the Children UK.

He has also worked for the charity Tearfund and for Deloitte, the accountant and financial firm.

The three Carlisle entries join the likes of Pope Francis, US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin who are already in the publication.

Everyone accepted into Who’s Who is invited to compile his or her own entry,so the listings can include as much information or as little as the personalities wish.

The entries of the Carlisle trio are brief and modest. Mr Fletcher-Vane explains his life and lists his achievements in just seven lines;

Professor Polley sums up his life in 10 lines.

Mr Drake uses only eight lines to tell his life story, which is seven lines fewer than the 15 line entry of Vladimir Putin; eight lines fewer than the 16 line entry of Pope Francis; and 15 lines fewer than the 23 line entry of US President Donald Trump.

Who’s Who 2019 is the 171st edition what is one of the world’s longest established and most comprehensive general reference books.

This latest edition is brought up to date for the year ahead with nearly 700 new names

The new Carlisle names and all the other new entries will now remain in Who’s Who - which runs to almost 3,000 pages - until they die,when they will be automatically transferred to the reference book’s sister publication, Who Was Who.