My father, Eric Youd, who has died aged 88, was a youth and group chief in Oldham for greater than 30 years.
He was finest identified for managing Oldham group centre and in addition the multicultural Greenhill centre within the Glodwick space of the city within the Nineteen Eighties, a decade during which riots have been breaking out throughout many British cities. On the time Oldham’s group schooling service was rated within the prime 10 nationally.
Born in Salford, to Arthur Youd, a wooden turner, and Margaret Ann (nee Parr), who labored on the looms within the Tatton Mill, on the age of 4 Eric was evacuated two days earlier than the beginning of the second world battle to the Lancashire village of Silverdale.
The distinction between the smog-ridden, poverty-stricken, industrialised metropolis and the clear air and rolling countryside surrounding the picturesque coastal village of Silverdale had a profound impact on his outlook and formed his selection of a profession in youth work.
After O-levels at Stretford Tech (now Trafford School) in Manchester, evening faculty at Salford Tech and nationwide service with the RAF, he labored as a co-ordinator for the YMCA’s British Boys for British Farms scheme, which positioned teenage boys from various backgrounds in YMCA hostels to coach for work on farms. He then utilized to review on the Nationwide School for the Coaching of Youth Staff in Leicester and after working as a youth employee in Keswick for 2 years from 1964, he returned to the north-west, settling in Oldham, the place he labored till 1993.
My father was an ebullient chief founding varied teams within the city, together with the Tortoise Ramblers, a strolling group for older folks, and the Oldham group choir, which remains to be going robust. He additionally arrange programs at Oldham group centre that have been designed to assist folks put together for retirement and the bustling centre hosted everybody from potters and photographers to singers and Scottish dancers.
Within the early 90s, as department chairman of the Nationwide Affiliation for Academics in Additional Schooling, he fought alongside colleagues in opposition to proposed modifications to Oldham Neighborhood Schooling and Youth Service that he believed would result in greater charges and decreased participation, as certainly they did, when the restructuring went forward. My father and his colleagues have been devastated that their passionate struggle on behalf of the folks of Oldham had been misplaced. He, together with many others, was made redundant.
Exterior work, Eric was a Justice of the Peace from 1977 to 2005, the chair of governors at Royton and Crompton chool, president of Oldham Choral Society and an lively member of the Labour and Co-operative events.
In 1964 he married Joan Grimshaw. She survives him, together with two daughters, Ruth and me, and a grandson, Joshua.
