OAP window cleaner dies after plunge

Keith Harrison, 72, was cleaning windows when he fell and banged his head. He was rushed to Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital but died three days later, following a stroke.

Eunice Clifton, 67, his close friend and neighbour in Ardsley, Barnsley, said: “He was jolly, kind and just a lovely man. People are in absolute shock.

“He loved being a window cleaner, I think it was the social aspect of it. He just couldn’t retire because he liked it so much.

“The day he had the accident he had been mending my fencing. He had got to the last panel and was coming back in the afternoon but never got the chance.”

Mr Harrison, who had lived on the same street since he was a boy, was a former miner who worked in Barnsley Council’s refuse department and started an afternoon window cleaning round.

He cleaned windows all over Barnsley and was working at a house in Darfield when the accident happened last week.

A funeral will he held on Monday at Ardsley Crematorium.