My friend Bob Askew was born at the south London address described by Julie Myerson in her book Home (2004), an account of the Victorian terraced house that later belonged to the writer – 34 Lillieshall Road, Clapham.
His parents, Peter, a grocer, and Phyllis, a shop assistant, soon moved, and Bob grew up in Croydon, south London. The eldest of three siblings, he passed his 11-plus despite the strain on the family of his mother’s ill health.
At John Ruskin grammar school, Croydon, Bob achieved both academic and sporting success, going on to study economics at Manchester University and making his home in the city where he was happy for the rest of his life. As he told Myerson, “I don’t often leave Manchester, if I can help it.”
During the summer of 1969 Bob was appointed to teach economics at the Manchester College of Commerce, soon to become part of the Manchester Polytechnic. He found himself with the largest timetable in the Department of Economics and so began a lifetime of trade union activity. He was also a keen member of the staff football team, Aytoun Wanderers.
He quickly became active in the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes, the trade union for polytechnic teachers, emerging as a key figure in trade unionism at Manchester polytechnic. Bob was a dedicated polytechnic man in that he saw the primary purpose of higher education was to teach, and he made a deliberate decision not to research. He was a diligent and attentive teacher, highly thought of by his students.
Bob’s trade union activity at the polytechnic led him to represent the staff on both the academic board and the board of governors, and on the regional council of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, which had grown out of ATTI. He was hardly ever without a large caseload of members’ grievances, and while he was often in opposition to the management, there were also occasions when he worked with them. Bob could be pragmatic as well as principled.
In 1990 the branch had called a strike and he was on the picket line when news came that Margaret Thatcher had resigned as prime minister. Never had the power of Natfhe seemed so great: it felt as if Manchester Polytechnic Nafhe had seen her off.
When Bob retired he took up crown green bowling, which replaced trade unionism in his life after a move to Honley, west Yorkshire. In 1971 Bob married Carole Green, a secretary, by whom he had a son, Colin. After the couple divorced, he married Christine Sutcliffe, a teacher, who already had two sons, Daniel and Matthew. He is survived by Christine, Colin, Daniel and Matthew, and by three grandchildren.
