PAUL AMBROSE CROGHAN 1934-2003 – AN OBITUARY
We have only just learnt that Paul Ambrose Croghan died over ten years ago, on 29th January 2003, and wish to put on record some token of gratitude in memory of him. He was especially remembered for the sterling work which he put in, during the 1960s and 1970s, in the development of individuality and originality, in the operation of Ringway aviation enthusiasts’ societies. He was a very individual person both in physical appearance and personality, highly complex and somewhat misunderstood., endowed with a cutting, acid-edged wit, which did not always endear him to certain persons To hear his voice over a telephone, one would gain an impression of a suave and polished intellectual, yet his dishevelled appearance was totally the reverse – very old, faded clothing, long unkempt hair, unshaven appearance and heavily nicotine-stained teeth.
His early activities in bringing the spotters together in the “rhubarb field” by Ringway Road, founding the “EBBMAS-Aero” aviation society, and running it for three years, are already well documented in the stories entitled “Ringway Spotting in the 1960s/1970s” (posted 17.11.2011) and “A Spotting Tale from 1963-1965” (posted 2.2.2012) in the “Ringway stories” section of the website www.ringwaypublications.com . The latter article also describes his part in the “Battle of the Concourse”, when he tried to fight against the might of the airport authorities in the pursuance of better facilities for the viewing of aeroplanes, in comparison to the meagre facilities offered by the spectators’ terraces, especially throughout the bitterly cold winter months. He was not a fan of those terraces, initially calling persons who went in there “sheep”, though he did very occasionally enter them when it was necessary to conduct business in the interest of his society.
Although for some years he did have a “Civil Aircraft Markings” book and used to underline the airliners which he had seen at Ringway, he adopted the highly unusual stance of not including aeroplanes observed at any other British aerodromes. Paul detested being referred to by others as a “spotter” – NO! he regarded himself as an “aviation enthusiast”. Similarly, if ever he was talking about railways and some boy piped up “I used to train-spot”, Paul would reply “Lots of people used to ‘train-spot’. I was different: I didn’t ‘train-spot’ I was a RAILWAY ENTHUSIAST!”
Sometimes he seemed to disparage the younger boys, calling them at best “small and squeaky” and at worst “snotty-nosed aircraft spotters”; and he coined the expression “London Airport Screamer Trip” for a coach going overnight to Heathrow – yet he loved organising for them. His nickname for D.P.M. was “Pudd’n”.
It was not only boys that received nicknames; he called P.B.H.’s first car, a 1953 Ford Popular, the “Upright Piano”, his wicked sense of humour immediately deducing that its early “Upright” design and its precarious state of engine tuning warranted such an irreverence! P.B.H. remembers an afternoon in his flat, some years after that, when Paul talked about characters whom he had mockingly tagged as “Elbows McKenna”, “Vinegar Lil” and “Mrs. Fawlty Towers”, the first being a social security unemployment review officer and the others being connected with restaurants or lodging-houses. Another rather odd and almost piratical use of a name was his obsession with the person Emily B. Bell, about whom he knew nothing except that a small building in Cheadle Heath was named after her; once he very skilfully painted a model VC-10 in spurious Pan-Am colours and named it “Jet Clipper Emily B. Bell”. Airline company names that lent themselves readily into changing into something more amusing, such as “Air Ferry” into “Hairy Furry”, or “Gregory Air Taxis” into “Giggly Air Taxis”, were candidates for his satire.
One of his most extraordinary pieces of his off-beat and creative personality was the composition of a witty rendition of prose, describing an aviation excursion in P.B.H.’s “Upright Piano”. The account of proceedings was featured in the very first edition of the EBBMAS magazine “Centreline” in 1965. He wrote of the trip as though it were a committee meeting of the society, the car being the “premises” in which the “meeting” was held and the aerodromes featuring as items on the agenda. The title was “Big End Knock”, as the car broke down with faulty big-end bearings in Coventry and the party had to leave it in a repair garage and return by train. This article was subsequently re-published in “Winged Words” in January 1979.
The society “P.B. Enterprises” would never have got off the ground without his help. When we had the idea of starting this society in 1971, P.B.H. contacted Mr. Croghan, who invited us – along with four other youths (Colin Fearnley, Gwyn Griffiths, Royston Wass and Russell Bee) to see him at the “International Centre” (as far as we can remember this was on George Street in Manchester) where he talked to us at length showing how vastly more there was to successful coach-trip running than we had imagined. He put together a splendid programme of trips for us for the 1972 season, gave us priceless advice about negotiating with coach firms, obtaining permission for aerodromes (“seducing” the aerodrome authorities as he put it), and keeping detailed records of all our passengers …
After that initial year, he no longer took an active part in the running, but still sometimes came on the excursions, giving advice and moral support. The last time he came on a trip was on 26th July 1975 to an air show at Middle Wallop – there is a photograph on the website of him examining an exhibition at this event.When P.B.H. first knew Mr. Croghan, he lived with an aunt in Wilmslow. He was however very much a Mancunian, having attended school in Manchester – St. Robert’s Roman Catholic Primary School and then St. Bede’s, and living at that time in Longsight at 10 Park Grove; then after his aunt’s death in 1965 he moved back to Longsight and took a flat in a large and rather faded semi-detached house, located at 23 Portland Crescent. He described himself as “a suave and sophisticated Metropolitan Mancunian who wintered in Chorlton-on-Medlock and spent the season in Longsight”. P.B.H. often used to visit him at that address – he did not exactly live in luxury – the flat contained the bare minimum of very old furniture and was usually piled knee-high with old newspapers, letters and typed documents, not to mention stale bread and milk cartons. In spite of this his self-proclaimed intellect was always keen and approachable when we needed help and he always gave us encouragement. He was the person to whom we turned.
On 24th August 2009, P.B.H., on a whim and out of curiosity, went to look at Portland Crescent. It still looked exactly the same as when he had last seen it in 1978 – EXCEPT THAT THE “SEMI” THAT HAD BEEN NOS. 21 AND 23 WAS NO LONGER THERE – it had been demolished and a new block of purpose-built flats had gone up in its place!P.B.H. was long an admirer of Paul’s poetry and songs. Going back to 1964 he used to fascinate the boys in the rhubarb field with his songs about IATA, whom he satirised as some form of god, and other poems including some that implied that commercial aviation was not the safest mode of transport; he developed to write some superb pieces of aviation verse – who can deny that his poem “N705PA”, a prophetic and exciting foretaste of the hope and pioneering spirit that ultimately culminated in Ringway airport developing into a major British transport hub, is literature? He also composed an extensive opus of railway poetry, and many poems about Manchester, unconnected with aviation or railways. Many of his aeroplane poems were published, initially in the “EBBMAS” society’s magazine “Centreline”, then some in the Northern Aircraft Preservation Society’s “Control Column”, and over the years in the P.B. Enterprises magazine “Winged Words”. Occasionally he obtained recognition for the B.B.C., as on 20.11.1972, when quite a bit of his railway poetry was sung on a television programme. He was also a highly gifted oil-painter of railway steam engines, his work being compared by others to that of the renowned railway artist Terence Cuneo! We felt that he had the potential to go an awful lot further than he did; surely he was made for better things than performing his poetry in the “back rooms of pubs”? In those spheres, incidentally, he always used the pseudonym of “Paul Connor” rather than his real name.
Another name by which he was known to many of the aeroplane-spotting fraternity was “Mr. Asac”, an acronym of “Arch-smoke-addicted Croghan”; fingers of his right hand were heavily blackened with nicotine, the nails of his forefinger and thumb literally being burnt away from the extinguishing of countless cigarettes! A devoted “Woodbine” chain-smoker, he used to save the butts from his unfiltered “Woodbines” in a dishevelled tin can and disgustingly roll them into new “super strength” nicotine cigarettes using “rizla” rolling papers; a bodily odour reminiscent of an old ash-tray usually announced his presence. Another of his frugalities was boiling up tea from the minimum quantity of leaves and using a pan instead of a teapot.
In 1978, having omitted to pay the rent when he went to work for a while at Butlin’s holiday camp in Barry, “chip-slinging” as he put it (i.e. cooking chips in a restaurant), Mr. Croghan lost his tenancy, and requested temporary accommodation in P.B.H.’s house. This arrangement continued for nearly two years, but sadly led to a disagreement and estrangement which was never healed.
By this time, he had entered into a relationship with Helen Rhodes, who like him moved in folk-music circles, though she adopted a rather more traditional and less individualistic style; this relationship must have continued about twenty years until Helen’s death. It is known that on at least one occasion, the two of them figured in a “walk-on” part on a television programme. Prior to his meeting Helen, as far as we were aware he never showed any interest in the ladies – although we have since discovered that he was involved for a while with a “WAAF” during his national service, when he was based in Norfolk, mainly at Neatishead, with the R.A.F., as a fighter plotter.
One of Paul Croghan’s poems, a satire on class-distinction, was entitled “The Better Part of Eccles”. Perhaps ironically, he ended his days in a flat in Church Street, Eccles. P.B.H., having seen its location, would not describe it as “the better part”; D.P.M. differs in this opinion – Paul would have been at home in the centre of Eccles, with numerous Joseph Holt’s public houses within staggering distance of his front door, best “Bitter” and gregarious working-class conversation maintaining parity with his smoking habit! Sadly, he was estranged from all his relatives, although he continued to have many admirers in the folk-music scene. Upon his demise and subsequent cremation a vigil was held for him at the “Duke of York” public house, directly opposite his last address. As he loved Manchester so much (“this marvellous city” and “this magical town” to quote from his poem “A Journey through Autumn”), it was appropriative that his ashes should be scattered in Sackville Gardens, near the city centre, sharing the site with his beloved Helen and the statue of another great British personality Alan Turing!
PETER B. HARDY & DAVID P. McCARTNEY, with assistance from BERNARD BURKE
61 Lacey Green, Wilmslow, Croghan's address in the days of "EBBMAS" and "Centreline" (left), and 196A Church Street, Eccles ("The Better Part of Eccles"), his last address, up to his death in 2003 (centre and right)
On 5.6.2013 we (P.B.H. & D.P.M.) placed a tribute to Croghan in the Sackville Gardens, Manchester, adjacent to the Alan Turing memorial statue; this is where his ashes were scattered.
