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John Thornton Secker
BY the time John Thornton Secker was 18, one of his defining characteristics was already in evidence: he could be relied upon to put all his energy into everything he took on.
Eventually it would help earn him an OBE.
Born in Batley, the middle of three children, and brought up in Ossett, John went to Batley Grammar School.
The Secker family spent many holidays at Filey where John and his younger brother Donald spent hours fishing off the Brigg. Later, when he had his own family, he had a caravan near Whitby, and in 1957 bought a cottage in Sandsend for holidays and weekends.
Leaving school at 16, he joined his father's waste textile business, but only two years later his father died, leaving the 18-year-old in charge of RT Secker and Son. John's older sister, Ethel, had meanwhile got a place at Cambridge to read maths – in the 1930s still a very unusual achievement for a woman.
In 1942 John left the business in the hands of senior managers to join the 17th/21st Lancers as a wireless operator and tank driver. He saw action at El Alamein and then in Italy – and narrowly escaped with his life when a shell hit his tank, killing three of his comrades. Returning to civilian life in 1945, he took over the reins of the family firm again, and was joined by Donald.
Together they built it back up, its expansion requiring a move in the 1960s into Scar End Mills at Earlsheaton, Dewsbury.
John played tennis and, unusually for him, without his customary single-minded commitment. That is until he joined a new club, and then it was noticed he had suddenly become much keener. This was later explained by the fact that a fellow member was a young woman called Jean Seddon, and in 1950, they were married. Soon after his marriage, he learned to ride, becoming prominent in the Badsworth & Rockwood hunts and secretary of the Badsworth point to point held at Wetherby Racecourse.
In 1959 the family moved to Woolley, near Wakefield, and his daughter Jill, having had riding lessons from a young age, went hunting with her father and uncle Donald, who had also moved to Woolley, where he shared a house with Ethel who had become a teacher.
John was a founder member of Woolley Residents' Association, organised Christmas carols in Woolley Hall, and when newcomers moved into the village, he made a point of visiting them and introducing them to their neighbours. Shortly before he retired in 1975, he was approached by Oxfam which was looking for someone to set up a new venture called Wastesaver in Huddersfield to reprocess unsaleable clothing from Oxfam shops.
Working as a volunteer, and with typical thoroughness, he not only established it as a going concern, but saw its annual turnover grow to more than 1m – an achievement which was recognised in 1990 by an OBE.
John Thornton Secker, who has died aged 91, leaves his widow Jean, their daughter Jill and grandsons Simon, Paul and Matthew.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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