Victoria Park crusader dies
NILA-LC-100225C2 - Ladywood care home entertainment afternoon. l-r resident Peter Gough, 76, and Mayor of Erewash Cllr Terry Holbrook
A CAMPAIGNER who helped to save Ilkeston’s Victoria Park has died at the age of 76.
Peter Gough was horrified when Erewash Borough Council talked of selling part of the park, near his home in Manners Road.
Developers wanted the land for a turning circle to serve new homes.
Mr Gough helped to collect more than 3,000 names on a petition and lobbied the Duke of Rutland, whose ancestor had given the land to Ilkeston in 1897 on condition that it was used for recreation.
The Duke refused permission for the sale in August 2000.
Mr Gough also joined a group that fought off plans for 150 homes on the town’s Pewit golf course in 2001.
And in 2006, he prompted a national campaign for planning notices to be written in plain English after spotting one in Latin outside shops in Bath Street, Ilkeston.
An old-school socialist, he was passionately fond of his adopted Ilkeston and had many letters published in the Advertiser.
He was deeply interested in local history, a keen follower of Ilkeston Rutland Cricket Club and an award-winning gardener who could often be seen pushing a wheelbarrow full of groceries home from his allotment.
“What a character Peter was,” the Rev Geoffrey Halliday said at his funeral service at Bramcote Crematorium.
“He always had something to say. Had it not been for his persistence, Victoria Park would probably now be a car park.
“And it was not only the written word, for he often uttered a few choice words in public, developing the art of heckling.
But this was typical, for scarlet was the colour of his politics and endless was his championing of social causes and social justice.”
Mr Gough wrote about his early life in a booklet that Rev Halliday described as an important social document. It recalled his time in the children’s home where he grew up in his native Grimsby.
On entering, he was given a new identity – Number 11 - and was later fitted out with a uniform and two pairs of black boots: one for school and one for Sundays.
“I could not help thinking how ‘well off’ we were,” he wrote, “because many boys at school had no boots of shoes at all and made do with plimsolls in all weathers.”
After National Service as a sapper in Singapore and Borneo, he came to Ilkeston in search of work and began a long career as a blastfurnaceman at Stanton Ironworks, which then employed 10,000 people.
In 1974, he joined the biggest protest march ever seen in Ilkeston but it failed to stop British Steel’s decision to end iron-making at Stanton and close the furnaces.
He died at Royal Derby Hospital on December 20 after a long illness, leaving a wife, Pauline, children Michael, Susan, Gary, Anne and John, 11 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Ilkeston
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.