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Many of the old stars of Music Hall are forgotten apart from the biggest names of all – Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno and others. One who made his way from one of the earliest styles of vaudeville came from Rochdale is remembered as much for his now un-politically correct show-business name as he is for…

It has become a tradition at Christmas time to tell ghost stories. Here are a few concerning our town. The Goblin builders    This is an old tale told by Roby in his ‘Traditions’ about the building of the Parish Church. It seems that towards the end of the reign of William the Conqueror they decided…

Famous for coral diving, for white sand beaches and a cornucopia of flora and fauna, the Fiji Islands, set in the South Pacific are promoted by their tourist agencies as ‘the islands of happiness.’ With temperatures hardly dipping below 79 degrees and a tropical climate producing exotic food they seem a long way from Rochdale…

Known throughout the town as Jimmy Ducks, a chain of grocery shops was started by a man of humble beginnings whose shops provided much service and many good memories for the people of Rochdale. James Duckworth was born in 1840 near Haslingden, the son of a poor weaver who found work in Rochdale and whose…

Over many years, TV audiences got to know Fred Dibnah and watched him shin up chimneys to repair them or set explosives to demolish them. His personality became celebrated by many but whilst he made a great name for himself as a Lancashire character, Rochdale can claim, as with so many things, that they were…

Jonathan Paul Clegg was born on 7th June 1953 in Bacup to a British father, Dennis Clegg, and a Zimbabwean mother, Muriel Clegg nee Braudo. Muriel came from a long line of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants and brought up Johnny as a secular Jew, refusing the bar mitzvah for him. On his parent’s divorce when he…