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Children's champ was still unbeaten

17/ 6/2006

HE WAS the children's champion, the man with a long unbeaten record in the realms of road safety.

But in August 1974 it was time for this special 'king of the road' to hand over his crown after a long and successful reign.

Generations of pupils at St Alban's Infant School in Drake Street had come to trust Norman Grindrod - and with good reason.

Norman of Midhurst Street, Deeplish, had been the school's lollipop man for 28 years - making him one of the longest serving in the area - and in all that time not one of his charges had been touched by a vehicle.

He said: "It has been touch and go from time to time when some of the kids have crossed the road on their own but thankfully none has been injured."

Norman had begun his working life on the buses, joining Rochdale Corporation as a conductor in 1927 after leaving school.

But in 1946 he left to take over as lollipop man at St Alban's.

Looking back on nearly three decades patrolling Drake Street, he said: "I have enjoyed every minute of it.

"You get attached to the children and I now escort children across the road whose parents I once escorted when I first began work."

Norman also said the work was getting more dangerous every day with traffic increasing tenfold in his time.

Though he loved the job, at the age of 64 and with St Alban's School about to close, he decided it was time to put his lollipop away.