A huge number of friends cycled alongside a “deeply loved” York man on his last journey this afternoon (Monday).
Terry Ashton died suddenly last month, leaving his family and many friends heartbroken.
A founder member of York’s first community pub, the Golden Ball, and a passionate worker for social housing in the city, he was hugely well-known.
For his last journey he was placed in a wicker coffin on a cycle hearse pedalled by his great friend Pete Kilbane.
Accompanied by a large cycling cortege he was taken from the Co-operative funeral home on Cromwell Road to York Crematorium for the service.
Pete described Terry as “deeply loved”.
“He was one of the bedrocks of the local community. He’s one of the founding members of the Golden Ball co-operative,” Pete said.
“And he just loved anything that brought people together.
“He always knew your name within minutes of meeting you – and always remembered your name.
“Somebody said you could be a scaffolder or you could be a consultant doctor, you got treated the same and you’d be talking to each other in no time at all.
“He was great at bringing people together. We can see that here today – there’s a huge turnout of people to cycle him down to the crematorium.”
A friend of Terry’s runs a cycle hearse service and the final ride “is just a nice way to commemorate his life. He was a very keen commuter cyclist,” Pete said.
“If he’s looking down, he’ll have a smile on his face.”
Terry worked for City of York Council for many years, most recently as a site manager for the new Passivhaus homes being built on the Duncombe Barracks site.
“He was brought up in a council house, and he was passionately committed to social housing. That’s what he spent his life doing.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of families living in houses in York that Terry was responsible for being built or refurbished.”
After the service, a wake was held for Terry at the Golden Ball on Cromwell Road.
‘He changed lives’
Steve Crowther has shared these memories of his good friend Terry Ashton
One of the biggest influences in Terry Ashton’s life was a Catholic priest, Father T.V. Whelan. Mike Thorpe said that it was Father Whelan who “encouraged us both to go to Plater College, Oxford.
“Terry took up the suggestion, it was the Catholic workers’ college, similar to Ruskin, but better.”
And from there to York University to study politics and indeed where this recollection begins.
I cannot remember when I first met Terry. It was way back when and it was in the Golden Ball. It was a meeting of minds, a friendship instantly forged.
We were and remained committed socialists. We both read Marx and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, but I’m not sure of other literary meeting points. Music. I am a composer, and I wrote a string quartet, A Song for Salford, after a trip to his cultural and spiritual home. I had a recording of the performance notable for a single cough followed by “sorry”. Mercifully he never came to one of them again.
The Salford trip was an eye-opener, and some. I met his pals, big pals, a lovely Asian shop owner who showed us his baseball bat and what looked very much like a shotgun.
We visited a burned-out shell of a pub – “there was a fight, someone called the cops, so they beat up the cops and burned the pub down” said one eyewitness who wouldn’t want to be named for legal reasons or any other reasons probably.
And I met his mum and dad, Bob and Kath Ashton. They were everything to him. Bob fought in Burma. God alone knows what he had to endure. He didn’t talk about it. He was a boxer.
There was a memorable trip to York and beers in the Ball. There is a lovely photo of Bob in his boxing pose framed and hung up on the pub wall.
Kath lost her parents in the war and, being the eldest, brought up the family on her own. God alone knows what she had to endure. I used to ring up Kath every now and then.
I am a musician with a good ear but could not tell the difference in their voices. I can still hear her voice even now. She came to our wedding. It made my day.
Terry had a couple of extended stays with me, a sort of in-between houses sort of thing. Most of the time he came home from work, went to the pub and ate cans of baked beans with sausages in them. Or so that was what Heinz claimed they were.
However, these stays weren’t without incident. Three guys jumped him in Cinder Lane as he was weaving his way back to the house after his ritual Sunday pub outing.
They were summarily dispatched followed by “if you want some more, 14 Wilton Rise mate”. Which was where I lived. On another occasion some cops paid a visit (no he hadn’t committed any crime). “Do you know Terry Ashton?”. Me: “No”. Cops: “Well he says you do”. Me: “Well OK I do”. Cops: “Actually he didn’t say that, can we come in.”
I stayed with him. Once. He had had a hernia op. Terry Cockerill got the day job and, holding the short straw, I got the night shift.
He was a bloody nightmare. In the morning there was the dreaded “Can you do me a favour mate”. This was going to the local Costcutter to buy a huge pack of Golden Virginia, cans of lager and an industrial quantity of loo paper. “It’s not for me” I pathetically told the shop assistant.
He christened us with nicknames: Crowther, Kilbane, Cantona, Thorpey, Kominsky, Jamesy to name but a few. Like something out of a Just William book.
He spent most of his working life at the City of York Council and York Housing. I know he was excellent at his job, he cared for the people he supported and the people he worked with. He changed lives.
Now he’s gone; he died on Saturday 27th April. The loss is, of course, immeasurable. Heartbreaking in fact.
But, there always must be a but, I remember a good friend, a good man and one who made a real difference.