New mayor plans to raise cash for children in need

All his skills as a class one football referee will come in handy when Oldham’s new mayor, Councillor Jim McArdle officiates at council meetings for the next 12 months.

The St James’s ward councillor was installed as the 36th civic head of the metropolitan borough at the annual mayor-making ceremony today.

Keen on football, as a teenager he was signed on an amateur basis by Bury FC.

He became a class 1 referee, in the former Lancashire Combination Football League, and became well known in the Oldham amateur leagues.

Councillor McArdle (66), from Waterhead, was born in Boundary Park, the former Oldham District General Hospital.

He was educated at Corpus Christi School in Chadderton and and joined Ferranti in Hollinwood as an electrical engineer. He later became a taxi driver.

Councillor McArdle has represented St James’s Ward since his election in 1994, and has a particular interest in regeneration, licensing and the environment.

He has chaired the East Oldham Area Committee, and is a governor of Hodge Clough and St Thomas’s C of E Primary School.

With his partner and mayoress, Councillor Kay Knox,he has four children and three grandchildren.

The new mayor will divide the money from his charity appeal three ways: for young carers aged five to 18, who are involved in a wide range responsibilities for family members, including domestic tasks, personal care, caring for younger brothers and sisters, managing household budgets, providing medical care, emotional support and interpreting for older family members; for Dr Kershaw’s Hospice, to provide a facility for children whose family members are receiving care at the hospice; and for other charities visited by the mayor during the year, whose needs only become apparent to him at the time.

He will reserve one third of the total for those charities where a small donation will make a huge difference.