I meet Cllr Bearshaw in the Mayor's Parlour in King's Lynn's Town Hall. For 6 months he's been mayor, a role he's taken on alongside a career in the RAF, which makes him the first serving mayor ever in the UK.
“It’s a huge accolade isn’t it," he tells me, “The airforce are pretty fantastic and a fully supportive of it, which is vital, with the flexibility of my role I get to juggle it, and manage it the best I can.
“I’ve joked a few times that it would be good to cut the robes in half and the uniform in half, and stitch them together!”
Image Borough Council
He's now in his 30th year of service, "I’ve always been hands on and into engineering, I actually joined as an air craft engineer, initially working on engines, fuel systems, gear boxes.
“Since then I’ve done various jobs, I’ve been the configuration manager for Typhoons, modification manager, fleet manager, and then I came back down to Marham in 2022, and now I’m the workforce warrant officer.
“Part of the reason of moving over to the current role in the RAF, is there’s no-where near as many meetings, a lot of the deadlines are self-set, so it just gives me that capacity. When I finish this evening’s mayoral events, I’ll jump back on the laptop later.”
Mayor Bearshaw with his son
This week Cllr Bearshaw's had 14 mayoral events, I ask how he manages to juggle the roles - as well as being dad to a 6 year old.
“It’s always a balance, we’ve just accepted as a family our life is on hold for the year, and we’ll fully embrace it and do everything we possibly can."
He says the support of his wife, Marisol, is key. Her late uncle, Peruvian Daniel Estrada, served for 7 years as mayor of Cusco, even receiving national recognition for his transformative leadership.
"It's incredible - big shoes to fill family wise! But it does mean she's kind of grown up with it, so she gets it.”
Steve Bearshaw, with wife Marisol and their son
Although unable to make any political decisions as mayor, he is concerned about big issues like the future of Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
"We are working extremely closely with the Trust at the moment for the hospital. If we don’t have the specialist services here, we won’t attract the top level doctors, if we don’t attract the top level doctors, we don’t attract the right students - and then you end up with a decline full stop. That needs a lot of scrutiny."
He describes being mayor as 'a privilege', “My aim - it’s a massive challenge - is to get out and thank every single volunteer.
"What a massive honour it is to call myself the mayor, but to give me the opportunity to actually go out and thank people for what they do - is so much more rewarding than being able to call myself mayor in my eyes.
“And doing my best to make sure that we as West Norfolk work well together and get the best for everybody - it’s about making all of our lives better.
"A lot of stuff I can’t influence, pot holes is everybody’s favourite isn’t it, so they all come under county, but I can feed that into county, I’ve got a really good relationship with highways.”
As we leave the Parlour, we pass portraits of previous mayors. His has already been taken, ready for next year, "I had it done over at RAF Marham in front of a fighter jet. A lot of the portraits are generally taken in the Town Hall, but I think we are going away from that tradition. The last few mayors, have had it taken in their ward or somewhere near them that means something to them."
With elections coming up in May, and his mayoral term coming to an end - life may soon look very different for him and his family.
“I could suddenly find myself from being the busiest man to twiddling my thumbs and just going back to one job!”
