Mike’s gift to charity

RETIREMENT gift . . . Former Blue Coat deputy head teacher Mike Platt (left) with Edward Ackroyd and parents Heidy and Paul

FORMER Blue Coat teacher Mike Platt was inspired by an ex-pupil and her young son to give up his leaving presents for a research charity.


He raised around £1,400 when he asked guests at his retirement party at Hotel Smokies Park to donate money to Action Duchenne rather than buy him gifts.

Mr Platt, who taught at Blue Coat for 34 years and was deputy head teacher, made the generous gesture after reading about former pupil Heidy Ackroyd (35) in the Oldham Chronicle.

Her four-year-old son Edward has the progressive muscle-wasting disease duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Heidy and her husband, Paul (40), who live in Denshaw, have so far raised £103,500 for Action Duchenne.

She described Mr Platt’s donation as fantastic and said: “All the money we have raised in the past 15 to 16 months has gone to Action Duchenne. It is funding a research project which looks promising.

“There is a lot of hope, that’s why we are doing it, because the Government isn’t funding this research project.

“By the time children with duchenne muscular dystrophy get to 14 or 15 years old, it is affecting their whole body.

“The average life-expectancy is the late teens or early 20s.”

Mr Platt (57) had originally planned to ask for donations for the RSPCA but decided to support Heidy after reading about the family.

He added: “I said right at the start I did not want retirement gifts. The party was the whole Blue Coat family — and we decided we wanted to look after one of our own.”