June’s decade of bridge building

June Smith: a 10-year love affair with Oldham, which she believes is now a better place than the town she first visited in the wake of the 2001 riots.

Martyn MEETS...June Smith, the driving force behind business and council links
FOR 10 years she was one of us. But June Smith has gone back across the border into her native Yorkshire — and I for one am going to miss her.

Coming from someone who was brought up to believe that “You can always tell Yorkshire folk, but you can’t tell ‘em much”, that is quite an admission.

But Joon, as she was affectionately known by me after she came to work in Oldham straight from a posting in Bradford, endeared herself to lots of people in this wonderful place of ours and there is little doubt she made her mark.

And she will be missed by lots of other folk, too.

Always full of life, full of optimism, full of enthusiasm, she was recruited to work for Oldham Council, as principal economic and business liaison officer, by a man I respected hugely, John Bird, who for a time looked after Oldham’s regeneration team.

He saw in June qualities that the local authority could harness as it sought to not so much repair as construct bridges between itself and the business community.

John was a wily old bird who recognised there had to be a partnership between competing communities — the public and the private sectors — who wanted the same thing: an enterprising, thriving, flourishing, economically successful Oldham.

June became that bridge, the catalyst for much of what has happened in the last few years and her departure will leave a huge gap.

Yet it is a sad fact that one of her colleagues, only a few weeks back, said something along the lines of: “I used to have a job like yours once, I used to go out and have coffee with business people.”

If that is the state of thinking at the top in Oldham politics, within and without the executive, then heaven help us.

I know, from our many private conversations before he lost control of the council and since, that Howard Sykes, the Lib-Dem group leader, valued the business community and I firmly believe that the current council leader, Jim McMahon, understands the need for partnership.

Sadly he, and the chief executive Charlie Parker, are hamstrung by financial constraints imposed by a savage Government, and our June has become just one more statistic of the current parlous state of this country’s ailing economy.

She has decamped to her roots in the Ridings, working for the Engineering Employers’ Federation in Yorkshire, North Humberside and parts of Lincolnshire.

“I didn’t want to go, and everyone knows that, and lots of people tried really hard to find a way for me to stay, but it wasn’t to be.

“There were other roles I could have applied for, but I believe I can achieve when I’m working with business and business people and that’s what I want to do. And it’s what I’m doing now.”

Speaking over coffee in the Old Bridge Hotel in her hometown of Holmfirth, just weeks after her emotional departure from Oldham, June told me she loves her new job — “It’s a great job, it really is, I just love what I do” — but she still misses Oldham.

“There are people in Oldham who will be friends for the rest of my life,” she confided as we sipped our lattes in front of a roaring coal fire.

And for a lady who doesn’t turn 50 for a few weeks yet, that’s quite an admission.

But our June is a single-minded, determined, driven woman and the EEF has landed a gem.

I first met her 10 years ago when she turned up in Oldham like a lost soul. Working at the time for the Commission for Racial Equality, she had visited Burnley, Blackburn and Oldham in the wake of the disturbances of 2001 and produced reports for her bosses.

“I looked at Oldham in depth and knew that I could make a difference here, given a chance. So I volunteered to come over and try to help the town get back on track.”

One of her first calls was to the Chronicle business desk and within a few hours June was sifting through my extensive contacts book as she put together a plan to help Oldham emerge from the horrors of the riots.

Working with — among others — Russell Gard from FirstBus, she conceived the Oldham United project which encouraged employers with ethnically diverse staff to get involved. It was a huge success and generated a great deal of positive publicity for Oldham at a time when the borough was being battered from all sides.

Sainsbury’s, Park Cake Bakery, BAE Systems, Ferranti Technologies, New Image (PR), the Chronicle, GarvinPrint and the Asian Business Association — to name but the principals — bought into the ideal and driven by June’s unquenchable enthusiasm, made it work.

Her work with employers brought her to the attention of the local authority in general and John Bird in particular and she was tempted away to work in local government.

“It was a hugely challenging time but my background gave me a good chance to succeed.”

That background didn’t, surprisingly, include university. On leaving school in Huddersfield, June made a pact with her childhood sweetheart Gary, soon to be her husband, whom she met when they were both 14. They are still together.

“I agreed not to go to university — I didn’t want to leave Gary for three years — and he agreed not to join the Army and we have been together ever since.”

They have two adult children — Matthew even did work experience here at the Chronicle — and live in their beloved Yorkshire.

Eschewing university, June joined the civil service and worked in the benefits office, spending time in all the departments.

Her line manager was one forward-thinking Peter Butters who drew down funding from agencies like SRB1 to create a partnership between business, the council, quasi-government agencies and academia to train people for vacancies rather than simply try to place people in roles they were perhaps not too well suited.

“It was a seven-year secondment and it was a fascinating time in my life.”

She left to work for a business support organisation in Bradford, but didn’t like writing legal handbooks and leaflets and her restless nature found her applying for a job with the CRE.

“I missed that interaction with the business community — I knew that’s where I could help make a difference.”

By now she was well qualified, having attended evening classes to achieve a degree. It was a tough time in her life, with a young family, a career and studying for a degree, and it took a toll on her health, a legacy which she suffers to this day but refuses to talk about.

“It’s not an issue,” she sniffs defiantly.

And it hasn’t been either. Her energy is infectious as those of us who have worked with June on the steering group of the One Oldham Business awards for four years, and latterly on the steering group of the One Future Oldham Sports awards, will readily testify.

She leaves with the good wishes of all, well, I presume all as I can’t speak for her bosses in the civic centre, but Oldham is certainly in a better place as a result of her contribution.

The business awards are a resounding success, as is the Oldham Business Leadership Group.

Working alongside Dave Benstead, from Diodes Zetex in Chadderton, she has given the business community of Oldham a voice in the higher echelons of power.

As we sat and reflected on her 10 years in Lancashire we mused on what might have been and what could have been and perhaps what should have been but, prompted by me, she conceded that Oldham was a better place now than the town she investigated in 2001.

“Everyone is working together, for a common goal. And that’s good, in fact, it’s really good.”

Will June be missed? In my humble opinion most certainly yes, but she goes into her Yorkshire sunset with our best wishes and with the knowledge that she has made a host of friendships that will endure.