You can bank on Mr Oldham to do the business

STEVE LOWE — just call him Mr Oldham

MARTYN MEETS: our regular column on Oldham’s movers and shakers
EVERYONE in Oldham seems to know Steve Lowe. The number of times I have heard this NatWest bank director referred to as ‘Mr Oldham’ is beyond counting.

He goes to more networking events — usually where there’s food involved — than I do... and that’s a statement in itself.

I have an excuse: I’m single and need to be fed, but Steve, now 61 and happily to married to Kath for ever, does it because Oldham has been good to him and he is determined to put something back.

He could have retired 18 months ago, but chose to stay on as the bank’s relationship director for the commercial team with a roving role in Oldham.

He’s relaxed these days, almost new-man: you will often see him without a tie, and that was unimaginable in the days when Steve, who lives in Royton but was born in Chadderton and educated at Cardinal Langley School in Middleton, joined the old District Bank as a 16-year-old.

He was posted to the Hollinwood branch, which still stands proud and foursquare at the junction of Manchester Road and Stanley Road, but didn’t actually work from there in his formative months.

“I was given a bag full of notes, usually around £5,000, and a bag of coins — 1d, threepenny pieces and silver sixpences — so it was heavy, and had to catch the bus to the sub-branch facing the old Roxy pictures.

“There wasn’t a bus stop outside the branch but the driver and conductor used to watch out for me and stop the bus. The bank wouldn’t pay for a taxi, no chance,” he fondly recalled.

He and colleague Mike Hall, who has since emigrated to Australia, made this journey and the return on the No 98 every day, being fed coffee and bacon butties in the mornings and cream cakes in the afternoon by the landlady of the pub next door.

From here Steve was moved to another sub-branch at Middleton Junction where he worked with a 70-year-old security guard and the branch was cleaned by an old lady from the flat above.

His career within banking circles was to take off spectacularly at such exciting locations as Bury, Oldham and Rochdale and he recalls a day at the end of his first 12 months with the bank when his then manager — “a toffee-nosed individual from south Manchester” — called the young Steve into his office.

“You’ll never get on in banking unless you lose your Oldham accent,” he was told in no uncertain terms but, as I can attest, he took no notice and neither did the bank’s directors, for Steve has had a stellar career.

In the early 1980s he was sent to work at a large branch in Scotland and this was the start of a globe-trotting career. He headed a 12-strong Securities and Lending Team in Glasgow and after three years the bosses at NatWest — following the merger of the District, Westminster and National Provincial banks — he took up a residential post at Heythrop Park in Oxfordshire, a training college set in 400 acres. He was head of the team, naturally.

This led to him also teaching in New York and he recalls staying in lodgings beneath the Twin Towers in Water Street, Manhattan, working for NatWest America.

“I used to go for two weeks,” he said. “Going out there the first time, I was travelling first class with one of the bank’s top bosses. I arrived at Heathrow and was told first-class was overbooked. I was distraught. Then I was asked if I minded going on Concord.

“I had never been out out Europe before so it was quite an experience, believe me.”

His training role also took him to Eastern Europe on many occasions, working outside of the bank but with its tacit blessing, in places such as Prague, Bratislava and Kosice and, on one memorable occasion, in what was described as a spa town in Slovakia.

“If Piestang was a spa town I really did not want to see the rest of the country,” he said.

These were happy days, travelling the world and being paid quite handsomely on the private gigs but soon he was to return to mainstream banking.

In 1990, he was offered three posts, one in London, one in the Isle of Wight and one in Oldham when his old boss — no, not the posh bloke from South Manchester — invited Steve back to his roots.

And he’s been back here ever since, working with the business community and integrating himself into the very fabric of his home town. He has helped, advised and probably cajoled literally hundreds of Oldham businesses and business people in the intervening years.

Steve has been a governor at Oldham Sixth Form College since it opened in 1992, succeeding the late Gloria Oates as chairman 12 months ago. He has been a trustee at Groundwork Oldham for 12 years and is also a governor at St Herbert’s RC School, Broadway, and for around 12 years was on the board at Oldham Coliseum Theatre.

An avid supporter of the Mahdlo Youth Zone project, in which he is heavily involved, Steve has also played a major role in establishing the One Oldham Business Awards as the must-attended event of the year for the borough’s business community.

This lifelong Latics’ fan — he is enjoying every minute of every game this year, he happily tells anyone who will listen — he also finds time for golf, being a member at Saddleworth for 20 years, and managing to sneak away from Kath for a few days a year for golf trips to France with the lads.

Retirement remains a dirty word . . . he is utterly relaxed in his professional and private life and is without doubt, in the opinion of this humble scribe, deserving of the sobriquet Mr Oldham.