The truth and nothing but the whole Ruth...

Ruth Roscoe Campbell: nearly 90, still volunteering

Martyn Meets... Ruth Campbell: former mayoress and community champion

“JUDITH is always telling me to sit down and take things a little easier — but I don’t take any notice most of the time.”

The words were spoken by Ruth Roscoe Campbell, as I sat close by in the lounge of her flat in Royton . . .

A former Mayoress of Oldham, Ruth isn’t the kind of woman who winks, but there was a metaphorical one in there.

Judith, her daughter, was sitting with us during this exchange and was clearly aware of her remarkable mother’s words... she raised her eyebrows and smiled, as I suspect she has been doing for most of her adult life.

For clearly there is little point in getting exasperated with Ruth, who is her own woman and despite being a couple of months short of her 90th birthday, is still doing her own thing and ever more will do so.

And woe betide anyone who tries to tell her otherwise.

For Ruth Roscoe Campbell is an independent spirit, who will do exactly as she wishes and determines, and at 89 is clearly not going to change now.

Not that anyone would want her to. Since her arrival in Oldham in 1949, when her late husband, Colin, landed a job as personnel manager at Stotts of Oldham Ltd, the fish and chip range manufacturer, Ruth has become not only one of us, but so integrated herself into the fabric of her adopted home town she is all but an institution.

In short, she has embraced Oldham and a lot of people are warmer and better for that.

Not that everyone sees Ruth as an Oldhamer. For the past 18 months she has been living in sheltered accommodation, having the freedom of independence in her self-contained flat, cooking and doing her daily chores, but also the joy of company in the communal lounge.

“But some of the ladies here think I’m posh. I mean, I’m not posh. I say to them ‘Why do you say I’m posh?’ and tell them I just speak a little differently because I’m not originally from Oldham.”

There is no rancour in her words, no flint in her eye, no malice in her smile for Ruth is a real lady, a gentle reminder of days gone by.

Days when she lived with her parents and brother, a spinster aunt and grandfather William Barker Upjohn, who was head gardener to the Earl of Ellesmere.

They all lived under one roof in the head gardener’s cottage — cottage, did I say? It was more of a splendid miniature country house in the vast, sprawling estate. Grandfather had a staff of 50 to manage and the young Ruth faced a 20-minute walk down the drive to reach the nearest village and shops. Given that background, it’s little wonder that some of us Oldham folk think that, well, maybe she is a teeny weeny bit posh.

The family lived rent free in the “cottage” until 1939 — “Well, no one in the Earl’s family thought grandfather was going to live until he was 96!” — and they were happy days.

Ruth recalls buying fish and chips at the Edge Fold in Walkden and being admonished by her mother, who was horrified at the thought her daughter had eaten the food in the street.

“I hope you went to you Aunty Pat’s,” she would say and I would nod . . . but we didn’t really.”

There’s that metaphorical wink again...

The family eventually moved into a new home in Swinton, but the posh connection continued, father Joe Roscoe — a clerk with the National Coal Board — being based at Worsley Old Hall.

Ruth was educated locally and after successfully completing a secretarial and administration course at Bolton Day Commercial College took a job with the Bleachers’ Association, earning £2.10s a week — and it was here she met Colin, who was to become her husband.

But it wasn’t love at first sight. Far from it. The fiercely independent Ruth had a number of suitors, and, despite going to the Deansgate Picture House with Colin, kept him guessing for a while.

There’s that metaphorical wink again...

In 1942, both joined the war effort, enlisting with the RAF and these were dark days. By now they were an item and when Colin’s Lancaster bomber was hit over Dresden, and crash-landed in France, the man who was to become Mayor of Oldham, was reported “missing in action”.

“The RAF told his mother and she sent me a telegram, and for 24 hours we didn’t know anything.”

But he survived and the pair married. In June, 2005, they celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary.

Ruth has vivid memories of the war years. She was plotter for the RAF and recalls working at an airfield near Nottingham plotting Divers, the dreaded Flying Bombs, and plotting their course towards Manchester, scrambling fighters to intercept and hopefully down some of the V1s before they reached their targets.

“It was only when I came to live in Oldham 20 years later that I learned that one of the Divers I plotted actually landed in Abbeyhills Road,” she recalled with a hint of sadness.

At the end of the war Colin got his job in Oldham, they bought a house in Alt Lane, and because of his links with the Conservatives in Bury — the couple had previously lived in Unsworth — he was invited to become a candidate.

“We paid £2,200 for the house. We looked at houses in Grotton but they were £3,000 and we just couldn’t afford one,” said Ruth.

Before too long Ruth, too, was embroiled in the community — in politics and working for the blind association — a job she holds to this day, an organisation for which still works tirelessly.

While husband Colin became a councillor, Ruth became an agent — known locally as “The Slavedriver” for this is a woman who doesn’t do things by halves. “I was determine that all my three candidates would get elected and that every house in the ward would get a leaflet.”

Daughter Judith was volunteered as a leaflet distributor, and Judith enlisted her best friend, Sylvia Swallow, who went on to marry my cousin, Ian Torr.

And Ruth went on, later in life, to work for Ian at Tormen, but that’s another story for another day, I suppose. Small world, though, eh...

Anyway, Ruth later became a magistrate and sat on the Oldham bench for 25 years and in 1980-1, when Colin was elected Mayor, Ruth became the Mayoress.

She still has the diary of her year in office and I was amazed to read that, just over 20 years ago, one of the official engagements was “Lunch with the Town Crier”.

It was a crowded a diary, too, and I inquired how Colin was allowed so much time off work, given that he was still in full-time employment with Stotts?

“In those days it was a feather in the cap of an employer to have the Mayor of Oldham on the staff . . .they were very good to Colin and allowed him to fulfil all his duties.”

In 2006, Ruth was named Woman of Oldham, in recognition of her tireless work for a range of charities, raising money for victims of polio and arthritis and, to this day, continuing to work for the Society for the Blind, a labour of love which has lasted 50 years.

As chair of the Old Vale sub committee, Ruth organises transport to social events for all her members. And it’s a job she takes seriously . . . enough for her to wake one morning at 4am. Her head was abuzz with jobs and tasks, so this remarkable woman got up and started compiling one of her lists, which she painstakingly compiles with addresses and pick-up times for the Ring and Ride service.

“It’s a marvellous service, it truly is — those people deserve a lot of credit for what they do for Oldham.”

Selfless and thinking of others right to the end of our delightful time together.

Ruth Roscoe Campbell is a fiercely proud and independent woman of whom Oldham can be immensely proud, and she is someone also deserves a deal of credit.