Kilroy really was here...

Steve Kilroy: last man standing

Martyn Meets...Steve Kilroy, the Chadderton BAE plant’s last man standing
THE day is fast approaching when Steve Kilroy will walk away from a lifetime of memories, the overwhelming majority good ones, and into a future unknown.

The Chaddy lad, who has known nothing — aside from four weeks in a cotton mill — in all his adult life other than the aircraft works on Broadway, will lock up and not so much throw away the key as tuck it carefully into his pocket and tap it lovingly.

And his dad Fred will be proud. Not so much that Steve, once described in a water polo programme as “a chip off the old block of redoubtable Fred” had closed the place — that decision was taken by the BAE Systems board some time ago and had precious little to do with a former apprentice fitter — more that Steve (49) had brought such dignity to an event that was heartbreaking for hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

For everyone who ever worked at Avro or Hawker Siddeley Aviation or British Aerospace or, latterly, BAE Systems following BAE’s acquisition of Marconi on the collapse of the electronic engineering conglomerate, was part of a family.

That family once numbered more than 11,000 at the height or aircraft production during the Second World War.

On the day I visited Steve, there was a skeleton staff.

It was an eerie, sad experience. I have spent many a happy hour in the last 25 years of reporting business news in Oldham in the once frenetic hive of activity that Alliott Vernon Rowe built on the green fields of Greengate 73 years ago.

A works that became known as Avro’s, home of the Lancaster bomber. My dad Alf was a welder at Avro’s and later flew in Lancasters as a rear gunner during the war and he would have been saddened, as are thousands of others, at the demise of such an iconic manufacturing facility.

But life goes on and the huge site is already home to other businesses.

Come what may, life will not be the same, not for Avro’s — as the site will be forever known to a generation of Oldhamers, not for Chadderton, not for the thousands upon thousands of people whose lives have been touched by the aircraft business.

And certainly not for Steve Kilroy.

This son of an aircraft toolroom manager wanted nothing more than to follow in his father’s footsteps on leaving Our Lady’s School in Royton but found himself working as a trainee manager at a cotton mill in Westwood. “It was a just a job, through a friend of the family, but I was there for only four weeks when I got an interview at Hawker Siddeley as it was then known and I’ve been here ever since.”

He was one of 80 apprentices who started on that fateful Monday morning 34 years ago Imagine that? Eighty new apprentices!

His career progressed to his present position of pre-eminence, as I choose to describe this lovely, generous man, as head of business integration for large military aircraft and also Chadderton site manager.

In truth he’s a ringmaster without a circus, nearly everyone has decamped for either Warton or Salmesbury.

In the intervening years Steve has worked in Saudi Arabia, Tulsa in the USA and various European sites but has always gravitated back to Chaddy, not quite the Prodigal Son, for he never wanted to leave, and he doesn’t want to go now, but the times they are a’changing and soon he will lock the gates for the last time.

He will step away with his memories, many of these magical.

The staff had a farewell party they funded themselves at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, at the end of March and produced a booklet of isms, little sayings that people had said and people had which brilliantly summed up life at Chaddy. It was hilarious and would be a sure-fire bestseller in the Oldham Chronicle bookshop if ever published more widely.

In between times he has continued to follow in the footsteps of the father he quite plainly adores. Fred introduced young Steve to water polo at Royton Swimming Baths and he splashed through the ranks to North West Counties representative level and a place in the Great Britain squad.

His grandma Mary Kilroy was an avid supporter of the water polo team, holding every club position and winning an MBE for her services to the community — “but never entered the water, she couldn’t swim,” laughed Steve.

His grandad Fred was a flag man at poolside, a sort of linesman, and he would spot things, nefarious underwater kicks and stuff that went on and often he would hurl his flags at the other team when his son, the redoubtable Fred, was a victim, recalled Steve with a smile of genuine affection.

On quitting water polo Steve began playing football and so it came to pass than one day the keeper didn’t turn up. Dave Whaley, now the editor of the Oldham Chronicle, was the captain and suggested that Steve, with his handball skills from his days in the pool take-over.

“I never played outfield again.”

He had a good career too, progressing into the semi-pro game with Chadderton and Mossley and he still treasures the cuttings and letter from Joe Royle when he made his one and only appearance for Oldham Athletic reserves.

Steve proudly displayed the cutting from the Oldham Chronicle of his single appearance, against Grimsby reserves, when a certain Kevin Drinkell smashed a hat-trick past the young engineer who had left work early, with his manager’s permission obviously, to answer the call from the Latics. Drinkell was sold six months later for £1 million. Probably thanks to Steve’s prowess between the sticks...

“I had rushed home and dried my boots with my sister’s hair dryer and then I invested in some new gloves.”

“Joe Royle rang the manager in my department and asked if he could borrow me for the evening. Andy Goram was in the first team that night, Andy Gorton was indisposed, and the club’s third keeper was injured.”

His cuttings book, lovingly preserved in his office desk, still has the hand-written letter from Latics legend Joe thanking him for his contribution and added sagely: “No one is ever judged on one performance.”

Said Steve: “Well I was. I never played for Oldham again, but they can’t take it away from me now. My dad was in the crowd and so was my manager from Chaddy. I didn’t get any wages but we all fish and chips on the coach on the way home.”

Just as Steve had followed in his father’s footsteps to BAE at Chaddy, and into the water polo team, he had also followed his father into the Latics team.

For the redoubtable Fred also played for Latics’ reserves yep, you’ve guessed, losing his first match 5-1.

“In his second game for the reserves they lost 6-0 so that’s one time I’m glad I didn’t follow in his footsteps.”

These days Steve is a family man, who two musically talented daughters, a patient wife in Dina and he finds his sporting fulfilment on the golf course.

He’s an 11-handicap member at North Manchester Golf Club, Rhodes, and also enjoys playing in Portugal having fallen for the singular charms of Burgau on the Western Algarve.

After he locks up for the last time, the original “Can-do “man, who will give of his time and consummate project management skills for any charitable concept, hopes his career in the aircraft industry still has some flying hours left.

He has chaired on One Oldham Business awards for four years, always in the background making sure everything is in its rightful place.

When he leaves Chaddy for the last time he will bring to an end an era, a time when Oldham helped rule the world.

And he will have played his part in full.