Political giant Eileen dies at the age of 85
Former mayor was mum of radio DJs
EILEEN Kershaw, a stalwart of local politics in and around Rochdale and mother of radio DJs and broadcasters Liz and Andy Kershaw, has died aged 85.
Passionate and forthright, the former teacher was first elected as a Labour councillor in 1964 to represent Balderstone on the old Rochdale county borough council.
She went on to serve for 33 years on Whitworth town council, Rossendale council and Lancashire county council.
BBC Six Music host Liz announced her mum’s death on Twitter writing: “I posted a photo of me and my Mum in October and got so many lovely messages from you.
“Just got a call out of the blue to say she has gone. She was very frail but still a shock. But maybe it’s for the best as she couldn’t understand why we couldn’t visit her now. “Cruel times.” In a 2014 interview with the Rochdale Observer to mark her 50th year in politics Mrs Kershaw told how her socialist upbringing on the Rochdale estate of Falinge shaped her political beliefs.
She said: “I was born on The Mount, which is where all the Irish people settled at the start of the last century.
“My grandmother Mary Frost came over from Ireland in 1900 and she was the first socialist I ever came in contact with.
“She didn’t know she was a socialist, she never had a label. But she fed everyone and she housed everyone that she could.
“She opened a cook shop on Whitworth Road and made meat and potato pie, broth and rice pudding.
“People used to bring a dish and it was filled for sixpence no matter how big the plate was.
“That was the socialism I grew up with, helping everybody.
“When my grandmother came over to Rochdale she saw poverty and set about doing something about it, which is what I’ve been trying to do all my life as well.”
Mrs Kershaw entered local politics after attending a meeting staged by the Bishop of Salford, setting out the Catholic church’s opposition to axe the 11-plus exams and create the comprehensive school system.
Mrs Kershaw said: “We sat there for an hour listening to the Bishop ramble on about protecting interests of more able children and preserving grammar schools.
“I was seething and suddenly, even though I’d never spoke in public before, I leapt to my feet and told the Bishop that Catholic children were being short-changed and they needed a better deal.
“People started clapping and stamping their feet in support.
“When I got outside there was a crowd waiting for me and a couple came up to me and said ‘Eileen will you stand for the council, we need someone to speak up for us’.”
Mrs Kershaw would go on to serve three stints as Mayor of Whitworth.
At the same time, she also represented Shawforth and Facit for 20 years on Rossendale council and Whitworthand part of Bacup at Lancashire county council, before standing down in 2004.
But she remained involved in local politics and was a regular and outspoken contributor to the letters pages of both the Rochdale Observer and Rossendale Free Press.
Mrs Kershaw was also close friends with the late, disgraced former Rochdale MP Cyril Smith.
Allegations of sexual abuse dogged Smith for a number of years, although he was never prosecuted during his lifetime.
Asked about the then unproven allegations following Smith’s death in 2010, Mrs Pickup told the Daily Mirror: “I don’t know to this day if it was true or not but it took a lot out of him.”
But when a subsequent expose and public inquiry found the former MP had in fact abused numerous boys over several decades Mrs Kershaw told The Times how she ‘felt physically sick that I believed him’.
In later life Mrs Kershaw campaigned for more awareness of the deadly brain virus encephalitis, after she was diagnosed with the condition in 2011.
She married her second husband, and fellow Whitworth councillor, Ron Pickup in 2000.
Mr Pickup died aged 83 in 2015.
Flags are flying at half mast over Whitworth town council offices to mark Mrs Kershaw’s death.