Window cleaner Richard Kelly is retiring after spending 50 years going up and down ladders in the town centre – and falling off just the once.

He was just 15 and straight out of Deighton Secondary School when he joined his uncle Ronald Hutchinson as a trainee cleaner of commercial windows in 1968.

Bradley-born Richard, who turns 65 later this month, remembers Uncle Ronald as a strict man who didn’t tolerate skiving or scruffiness.

“Uncle Ronald used to inspect our shoes and made sure we dressed accordingly. We wore a denim smock with big pouches and leather shoulder pads for carrying ladders.

“Ronald would wait at the depot to make sure that we didn’t go home early.”

Richard was shown the ropes by colleague Bobby Cawtheray who told him he was “slow but thorough” but that “speed will come later.”

Premises cleaned by Richard and teammate David Stopford included Washington’s, Wakefield Army Stores, Trueform, Dunnes, Huddersfield Building Society, Co-op, Bata Shoes and many more.

One shop near Upperhead Row has stuck in his mind.

Richard Kelly of Salendine Nook retires as a Huddersfield town centre window cleaner after 50 years. Finishing whilst at the top..Popular Huddersfield Window cleaner Richard Kelly hangs up his ladder.

“It was a horse meat shop which had bluebottles in the window as big as bats.”

At Britannia Buildings Richard and colleagues would step out of a window on the second floor and use a ledge to navigate around the entire building – all done without a safety harness.

“The sill was quite wide. I remember a buddy telling me to ‘get on with it, you can ride a bike round there’. I would go out of the window and around the building and go back in through the same window.”

Later in his career, flocks of starlings made it impossible to use the ledge as it was covered in bird poo and bird repellent which was sticky.

Richard Kelly of Salendine Nook retires as a Huddersfield town centre window cleaner after 50 years. If you could see the sights he's seen..Popular Huddersfield Window cleaner Richard Kelly plays a familiar song.

“We sometimes had to scrape three or four inches of bird muck off the ledges. We used to get jobs like that.”

Richard, who is married to Bev and lives at Salendine Nook, said he had enjoyed his 50 years in the same job, particularly meeting customers who became friends.

“Customers have become dear friends and I have had retirement cards and gifts from people.”

But there were downsides to a job working up ladders.

“I did fall from a great height in 1985,” he recalled.

“My daughter was born in July and I fell in November. I fell from a ladder which was on a frosty surface and I am lucky to be alive. I fractured the neck of my femur and had a compound fracture of my elbow.

“I was told by the doctors that I would never clean windows again but six months later I was back climbing ladders.”

He is thankful to medics at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary for fixing him up with metal plates and pins.

“Health and safety would have had a fit at some of the things we used to do. We used to walk over rooftops from one side of a building to another. You needed a head for heights.

Richard Kelly of Salendine Nook retires as a Huddersfield town centre window cleaner after 50 years.Guess who is retiring?...Familiar town centre window cleaner Richard Kelly.

“In those days we used to push the ladders around on a two-wheeled cart like an aircraft bomber carrier.

“We had to push it down Chapel Hill to Highfield Gears and then back up again because we didn’t have a van. We started at 7.15am after getting our hot water from Mack Fisheries on New Street.

“I have had the same job since I left school and not many people can say that, can they?”