Revealed: the secret lives of cafe boss Mike

RELAXED: Mike Cumiskey in his new life far from the fast lane of high-speed patrol cars

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Martyn meets... a former Royal driver, private detective and former lighthouse dweller Mike Cumiskey
IF you go down to the park today there won’t be a big surprise... just a heart-warming welcome and some sumptuous, freshly-cooked food in the Pavilion Cafe.

And there to greet you, to continue this whimsical musical theme, will be cafe founder Mike Cumiskey.

I spent a happy hour in the company of the engaging, enthralling, charming man on a stunning wintry morning when at least one customer — there are some seriously hardy folk in Oldham — sat outside on the decking overlooking the frosty lawns of Chadderton Hall Park.

So how did this man, who used to live in a lighthouse on Ireland’s east coast, once drove members of the Royal family around Manchester, was part of the Greater Manchester Police high performance pursuit team and who has a string of police commendations and citations, end up running a cafe in the park in downtown Chadderton?

It’s a fascinating tale.

We talked about everything, from his single status to his continuing investigative work, his love of the catering industry and his hopes for the future.

And a possible move into the pavilion at High Crompton Park, having declined an invitation to look into the potential of the cafe opportunities in Alexandra Park.

I caught up with this former policeman — that’s a total misnomer really, after all he was much more than a bobby on the beat, he was part of the VIP driving team that ferried royals and political leaders around Manchester.

A former detective constable, who ran a private investigations agency in Dublin for seven years, he still takes on commissions and thanks to what he describes as his “quite wonderful staff” at the cafe, he is able to spend time away from the business he founded in 2006.

“The cafe came about quite by accident really,” he said.

Having returned from his Dublin sojourn, he was running the Sale office of the investigations business while living with his Irish girlfriend in Chadderton Fold. Summer evening strolls through the park often caught the pair lingering in front of the rotting, decrepit former bowling pavilion.

“My girlfriend had a catering background and I was looking for an opportunity for her, so I got hold of the council and we came to a deal.”

The details of that “deal” have never been revealed, but save to say Mike, now 51, invested his own funds to transform the premises.

Throughout our chat customers continually stopped to greet Mike, one of the most affable men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting —but he had time for each and everyone of them.

And he knew all their names, including Bob who visits everyday, taking two buses to travel from his home to have lunch with his friends.

“It’s become that kind of place . . . people have become friends simply through meeting here.”

I can see the attraction. The cafe is warm, welcoming and, once you have eaten the food — from breakfasts and snacks to lunches and afternoon teas — I guarantee you will return.

Quite what Mike does, though, I never really got to know . . . I didn’t see him behind the counter, or in a pinny, or carrying coffees or food to customers, but he must do something, surely?

Where was I? Oh, yes . . . long before he opened the doors of his new enterprise, his Irish girlfriend had grown homesick and returned to Emerald Isle, leaving Mike to forge a lonely path in his new career.

That’s when he got lucky. “Ellen Clegg came to see me and she has been a Godsend. She knows everything there is to know about catering and has played a massive part in the cafe’s success.”

Now part of the ownership team, Ellen, from High Crompton, has bought into the project which has seen Mike employ people with learning difficulties, two of whom — Paul Saunders from Chadderton and Samantha Crossley, from Royton — are now full-time, key members of the team.

“It’s something I believe in passionately. It all started when carers started to call with their charges and things went on from there.”

If, and at this moment, it is a mighty if, Mike and his team take on the High Crompton project — he estimates the derelict premises there need around £100,000 of investment to create a usable space — he will most certainly continue to recruit and support people who might be otherwise seen to be on the margins of society.

Clearly, sat before me, was a caring, kind individual and not one readily associated with undercover work in the Falls Road of Belfast or high-speed car chases across the motorways of Greater Manchester. “That was a different lifetime, it seems a long time ago,” he smiled in a reflective way that suggested times when he was bundled into the back of a parked van by an armed gang.

Like much of his life, he arrived in the police by accident.

“I hadn’t done as well as expected in my exams and my dad threw me a copy of the Sunday Times, with an advert for police cadets. He suggested I give it a try.”

Mike did just that, finished top of the entry intake of 500 hopefuls and was earmarked for “big things” being sent to police academy at Bramshill in Hampshire.

His first posting was in Oldham, on the beat, and he was next moved to the CID. He then moved into traffic and worked the motorway and north side of Manchester.

He was transferred into X Cars, — unmarked vehicles — and was recommended for the high performance pursuit team and from here it was a natural progression to VIP driving.

At this juncture things got complicated . . .

Cumiskey is an Irish name, Mike obviously is of Irish descent and his grandfather was a captain the regular Irish Army.

“So when the Special Branch came to look into my background, before I was allowed to drive around with an armed officer in the passenger seat and the Queen, or Prince Charles or the PM in the back seat there was obviously an in-depth investigation into my life.”

He was invalided out of the force following one high-speed crash too many. “I wasn’t reckless, not all, I was often asked to ram vehicles in a chase . . . it was all a part of the business of fighting crime.”

On leaving the force, at the grand old age of 29, he bought a second-hand car sales pitch in Rochdale and for five years sold cars.

“It was a good life, a good living, before the big boys took over.”

Growing tired of life on the forecourt of a filling station, he bought a 1960 VW camper van and set off around the coast of Ireland, discovering his heritage. Three months into that road trip he was approached, out of the blue, to take six months out to manage the private investigations office in Dublin.

That six months became seven years and he lived for five of those years in a working lighthouse eight miles down the road. “Good days,” he sighed.

He came home to England to manage the Sale office of the investigations agency, in which he later invested his own money, before taking a whole new perspective on life through the cafe.

He still works, albeit part-time, in investigations but has other focuses now . . . watching Manchester United and trying to reduce his golf handicap — it’s a very respectable 18 — at Hopwood.

As to his private life he wistfully reflects that he would like to have had a family and hopes it’s not too late. He was married once — “did it last two weeks or six?’ he asked himself — and is relaxed at the prospect of second go at the institution.

But there is no one on the horizon just yet . . . which is surprising for such a gallant as Oldham’s very own Irish charmer.