My father, Eric Youd, who has died aged 88, was a youth and community leader in Oldham for more than 30 years.
He was best known for managing Oldham community centre and also the multicultural Greenhill centre in the Glodwick area of the town in the 1980s, a decade in which riots were breaking out across many British cities. At the time Oldham’s community education service was rated in the top 10 nationally.
Born in Salford, to Arthur Youd, a wood turner, and Margaret Ann (nee Parr), who worked on the looms in the Tatton Mill, at the age of four Eric was evacuated two days before the start of the second world war to the Lancashire village of Silverdale.
