Valley campaigner Derek dies aged 84
DEREK Addy, one of the founder members of the Save Spodden Valley campaign, has died aged 84.
Born on Rooley Moor Road in 1932, Derek spent eight decades working and campaigning in Rochdale.
As a schoolboy he worked a horse-drawn milk round in Norden, back then a much smaller village.
His lifelong equine links were forged from a career as a registered farrier.
Often accompanied with a rescue dog as companion, Derek’s work included shoeing Greater Manchester Police horses and treating donkeys at several local animal sanctuaries.
Some of his proudest professional achievements were the prizes he won for farriery at Wembley with the shire horses of the late E.R Williams.
In the 1980s and 90s Derek was a frequent sight walking his Arab stallion through the terraced streets of Spotland into Healey Dell.
Derek and his beloved wife Pat celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary last April.
As a devoted husband, father and grandad, he was featured in the Observer last year with his grandson on a toy horse that was won in a Rochdale Observer ‘bonny baby’ competition in the mid 1930s.
For more than 35 years, from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, Pat and Derek’s hardware shop on Rooley Moor Road was a local institution.
As a former Turner Brothers Asbestos worker who had watched family members and friends succumb to asbestos cancer, Derek was one of the founding members of the Save Spodden Valley campaign in 2004 whose aim is to make the controversial asbestos factory site an extension of Healey Dell through the river valley to Rochdale town centre.
As keen environmentalists Derek and his son Jason, also a member of Save Spodden Valley, planted over 3,000 trees on family-owned land off Birch Road, Wardle.
They also made over 2,000 sq m available to dedicate as a bridleway in the Wardle Gateway project to help public access to the countryside.
Derek never made his involvement in the projects known.
A good friend, Alan Somerville paid tribute to him.
He said: “They broke the mould with Derek Mr Spotland.
“He was old school, hard-working and straight-talking with a great sense of fun. This is the end of an era.”
Derek’s funeral will be at Rochdale Crematorium at 11.45am Friday, December 16.
His family insist there is no need to wear black - it is to be a celebration of a long life, lived to the full.
No flowers, donations to Crossroads Care Ribble Valley.