a house, a compulsory purchase order, and Gordon Kirkham

Bugger the council!

My ‘middle’ brother Gordon was the accepted renegade of the family during his younger years. He rode a motorbike, lived life in the fast lane and to me was the Kirkham family version of James Dean. Obviously I was too young to understand most of the conversations that went on, but I do remember my mum saying "he won't be happy until he kills himself on that bike!", he did try, having a bad accident in Yorkeshire of all places, his BSA went off the road and Gordon went off the road with it!

Gordon married a girl called Kathleen, the daughter of our next door neighbours Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and moved into a one up one down terraced house on Clough street. These houses were incredibly small, comprising as the name suggests one room downstairs and one room upstairs. The toilet was ‘out back’, as we would say and they were not just one up one down, but back to back. Behind his house was another one exactly the same, the mill owners of the 19^th century wanted to cram as many people into any space possible, having said that, in those days having your own rooms was priceless, literally, when most working class families lived four families per terraced house.

But this was 1966, and things were changing, the houses were inspected by Burney borough council and declared as unfit and slated for compulsory purchase and subsequent demolition. Gordon and Kathleen moved to Burdett street, and then it happened. Opening the post one day Gordon was confronted with an estimate from the council for his share of the costs associated with demolishing his old house, apparently the money that he had received for re-housing also included a portion that was to be used to demolish it!

It does seem a strange way of doing things, but then no one has ever accused a local council of not doing strange things. There was enough money, the problem was that Gordon now considered this money his, and not the councils. To this day I remember him standing in our living room on Accrington road, telling my parents that there was “no bloody way that lot would get a penny off him” then ensued a very unflattering view of councils, councillors and basically the whole planning department of Burnley Borough council. The last statement in the conversation was a real jaw dropper, “that’s it then, I’ll pull the bloody house down myself, sod ‘em”





where the bushes are on the right is where the row of
houses stood. Straight ahead is the Connel chip shop
our next door neighbours at 134 Accy road.



Now Gordon was known to be somewhat hot headed, but this time he meant it. At the time he was working as a firefighter, was very fit and strong, and worked a fireman's schedule. Which meant that he got a few days off at once. So on one set of days off he started pulling the house down from the roof down, the slates went first, then the roof beams. I remember looking at the gathered crowd watching Gordon use a large hand saw to cut through the two massive roof beams which ran from house to house, one end at once, and dropping them onto what was left of the upstairs floor. Then the only wall, the front, came down, then the upstairs floor including roof beams were dropped to the ground. This was incredibly dangerous, and why he was not stopped I have no idea. Maybe those "bloody idiots from the council" thought that if he was mad enough to do this, then they should stay well away! The assembled crowd of locals were unanimous in there opinion of ‘by gum he shouldn’t be doin’ that. Grand lad though, bugger the council!”

It must be said that there was no protection from falling masonry, falling glass or falling Kirkham’s. Somehow the house came down without incident, and all that was left was a pile of rubble that was proudly declared to “be all that the bloody council will get from me!” and that was it, one house demolished, one happy Gordon and one amazed group of bystanders.

One of my most vivid memories of Gordon, (I worked with him for a couple of years as a builder) was when he told me that soul music was rubbish and that Buddy Holly was the best. He then went on to give me a spectacular rendition of Peggy Sue complete with high notes, vibrato and twitching legs. Not a bad  rendition actually, but it was in the middle of Harold street when Lucas’s work day ended, once more an assembled crowd were heard to say “by gum he shouldn’t be doin’ that!”

R.I.P Gordon, miss ya buddy