Mottram Mural Unveiling

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Thank you very much for coming this morning. It is a pleasure to welcome Councillor Roy Oldham this morning. He has kindly accepted an invitation to unveil our wonderful, unique Mural in our newly refurbished Community Centre. Thank you Councillor Oldham and Tameside Council for all their financial help to enable us to complete all the work. Right before I say all the other thank yous I think we’ll let people look at the mural shall we Roy?

Shall we do that.

Yeah so apparently...

Stand well back, one, two, three now

Applause and cheers

I’d like to welcome everybody of course to this building and it may not surprise you this is the primary school I went to when I was a child and I was here until I was eleven. It was much bigger then or it seemed that way and it was each two floors each divided by a partition and it was at the time young people stayed till they were fourteen so there was seven classes. Eleven plus came in so I moved at eleven but it is something which is preserved for me in my memory and I’d like to thank Tom and yourself Beryl and all the committee and those who work so hard to keep this building alive and working because it would have been a crime for it to have fallen down or to be removed because of neglect so it’s in my memory still, my school, your Community Centre.

Now when I was a teenager Mr Lowry moved into the Village at Mottram, came to the Elms, the Elms had been in the ownership of the guy who taught music and when he died, Mr Lowry came in 1948, and so most of us became familiar with the old guy who used to stand at the bus stop in his trilby and his large coat muttering away and in all kinds of weathers. Anyway eventually I decided I would attempt to become a Councillor for Longdendale in 1966 I was elected to this Ward and I’ve represented it ever since and still do. So I went to see Mr Lowry at the time and I asked him if he would sign my nomination papers and Mr Lowry signed them and I still have those nomination papers so they’re of great value and interest to me.

He called thereafter I was called in on a number of occasions to give him some help or aid. His gas fire was playing up and so he was really really moaning about it and he could moan, so I sorted that out for him then he said right you’ve got to sort me out a bus stop I’m sick to death of standing in the rain no bus shelters then, so we built bus shelters and apparently I didn’t hear this but my wife Margaret heard it on the radio, the local radio Mr Lowry is being interviewed and he said talking about the usual thing where he’d come from and what he was doing and he said do you have any visitors - oh yes he said I’ve got a young man comes round he sits with me and talks to me about all kinds of things, he’s a Socialist he doesn’t know I’m a Tory (laughs) he said well I signed his papers for him. Once you got to know Mr Lowry the old grumpy figure he was disappeared and he was a kind, shy man and I think that was one of his problems his shyness, but it was a very interesting period and actually eventually he did me a drawing when I was the Chair of the Longdendale Urban District Council he did me a drawing which went on my Christmas card and we need that drawing now I’ve had a print made of it and had it enlarged and that’s exactly what you’ve got behind you, it’s the Crown Pole with some little children on it and his usual dogs and the church at the back, so I’d like to present this to the Community Centre to sit aside the Mural which Peter Wroe has done so they’ll compliment each other - the modern artist and the other modern artist and maybe one day your painting will be as valuable as Lawrence’s painting.

His only problem what he told me he got his riches and fame too late in life and it really hurt him that because he said you can go on the railway trains and they were the old side corridor ones with the off seats you’ll find my paintings in second class carriages which were sold for next to nothing - for pounds and they’re stuck in those carriages. Now he said I’m more famous and now I can paint for money he said but I’m too old, and it really hurt that him that, that his fame came to late so I’ll present this to you Beryl and you can put it up

Thank you very much

Applause

I’d just like to thank Peter personally for doing this because it’s something that will remain here forever with the people who look after this building and those who follow and it will be seen as something extraordinarily different and thanks to you Peter it’s here, thank you.

Applause