My friend John Windle, who has died aged 75, three years after a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, was a committed socialist for all his adult life and supported the successful campaign to elect Tony Benn as MP for Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in the fiercely contested byelection of 1984. John devoted much of his earlier life to supporting his local Labour party in Chesterfield and various community associations in Sheffield.
Born in Chesterfield to Kathleen (nee Ashmore), a school cook, and Roy Windle, a steelworker, John attended the local grammar school and left aged 16 to work in administration at Chesterfield Tube Works, which produced weldless steel cylinders, tubes and forgings. He continued his education part-time, gaining an HNC in business studies at Chesterfield College, then a diploma in the same subject at Sheffield Polytechnic in the early 1980s, followed later by a master’s degree from the University of Hull in 1997.
In 1980, John joined the management of the University of Sheffield students’ union (SUSU); in 1982 he was appointed its general manager, where he worked with six students (“sabbaticals”), who were given a year off their studies to take up paid roles within the union.
John was gratified that many of these young people went on to be high achievers in their chosen careers: one became a board member of Shell, another a vice-president at Starbucks. SUSU provided a wealth of services for the students, and during John’s tenure it provided administrative support for more than 150 clubs and societies and, with two rights and advice officers, looked after two 1,000-seat venues, coffee bars, a 50-place nursery and two commercially run pubs.
John was proud of the training programmes he set up for those on sabbatical and other students. The operation of the facilities they controlled kept prices down, and also ensured commercial profits were used to provide welfare and advice services.
In 2003 John had a heart attack and gave up full-time work; by then SUSU had been voted the top student union in the country for six consecutive years in student and Times Higher Education surveys. When he had recovered, he established his own management consultancy. With Diane Boston, a former manager of Exeter University students’ union, he developed a quality assurance system for unions to measure their effectiveness and how they added value to their institutions; more than 60 student unions went through this annual evaluation programme. By the time he retired in 2015, the scheme was endorsed and financed by the Department for Education.
John was a keen sportsman; cricket was his passion and in his retirement he was heavily involved in Chesterfield Cricket Club and the Friends of Queen’s Park Cricket.
In 1967 John met Sue Barwick, when he was the chair of Chesterfield Youth Council and she was representing her church youth club. They married in 1971. She survives him, as do their children, Joanne, Richard and Lizzie, and their grandchildren, Ethan and Millie.
