Councillor Des Wilson is no Robin Hood, but in modern terms he's equally as busy in and around his local community making a difference to the lives of locals. Considering the Jamaican born former coal-miner, precision engineer and local café owner has done pretty much everything in life and is now in his second spell as Lord Mayor.  
Born in December 1939 in Jamaica Des came to England in November 1957 to join relatives and settled in Nottingham. He worked first worked as a coal-miner and then for Nottingham City Transport. He's a trained precision engineer but with the decline the industry and demand for his unique skills he looked to self employment. He invested in a café in the Radford area where he became got involved with a cross-section of the community. This gave Des the insight into the problems faced by the indigent communities. By 1984 he was fully involved with such organisations as The Afro-Caribbean National Artistic Centre (ACNA), West-Indian National Association (WINA), Racial Equality Council (REC) and in 1982 he joined the Joint Indian Pakistani Afro-Caribbean Community Project (JIPAC).
In 1993 he was tasked with rebuilding PATH, a positive action training organisation designed to get young people from the ethnic minority communities into Housing Management. With his past experience and knowledge, and realising that Housing Management was not the only area of employment where BME people were under-represented at management level, he had the constitution changed. He entered local politics in the 80s and has been an elected member of the council since 1991.