Amazing 100-year life of bike shop pioneer

THE man who ran the famous Skidmore’s cycle shop in Union Street, Oldham, has died aged 100.

Harry Skidmore never forgot the town where he was born and where he ran the bike shop until 1949. Started by his family in 1932, it still bears the Skidmore name under new owners.

Although he moved to America more than 60 years ago, Harry still had many relatives in the area, and visited his home town regularly.

His daughter Jan, speaking from her home in San Diego, California, said: “He died one month to the day past his 100th birthday.

“He retired when he was 86 and he did very, very well until his last year.

“He last visited Oldham 15 years ago.”

He left Oldham for Canada in 1949, then his first wife Florence, their four children, and her parents Fred and Sarah Jane Holden followed him in 1952 and went to live in Hollywood.

When he ran the bicycle shop he built racing bikes and invented a new type of gearing. In America he manufactured electrical equipment for opening curtains and sliding doors.

But he also farmed Christmas trees on a ranch in California, made equipment for the film industry and worked for Howard Hughes’s aircraft company.

He later moved further north to Seattle with his second wife for the last 42 years, Kayoko, where they lived for 15 years, on Vashon Island, on Puget Sound.

Jan added: “He was cremated and his ashes were carried on the ferry.

“It stopped, sounded its horn, and his ashes were scattered into the water.”