New centre's rooms remember the stars

Oct 21 2002 By Andrew Baldwin, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE widow of entertainer Roy Castle is returning to Huddersfield to open a conference centre.

Fiona Castle will perform the ceremony at the Syngenta works in Leeds Road.

Four rooms inside the centre are being dedicated to celebrities with Huddersfield links.

One will be named after Roy Castle, the Scholes-born star who died of lung cancer just two days after his 62nd birthday in 1994.

He got his first taste of the music business at the age of six, when he took up piano lessons and later began learning to tap-dance.

His big break came with his first television appearance on The Dickie Valentine Saturday Spectacular.

He is best remembered as presented of the BBC TV programme Record Breakers which had a 22-series run.

Not long before his death he made a final return to Huddersfield when raising money for the lung cancer research foundation named after him.

A charity to fight the disease is named in his memory.

Another conference centre room remembers Lord Wilson, who lived in Cowlersley and went on to become one of Britain's most noted prime ministers.

The Labour politician served two terms as prime minister - from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976.