..................  A WARM WELCOME TO OUR NEW PRESIDENT .................... 

         DR. JOE DAWSON   M.Ed., D.Mus., ARMCM, FLCM, FRSA

A very familiar figure at occasions musical in Rochdale - not least the RMS Concert series - Joe has kindly agreed to be our President following the sad death of Joe Fitton (reported above).
Joe was educated at Rochdale Grammar School and Manchester’s Royal College of Music, College of Education and University. He held senior positions in schools and colleges for over twenty years and through the 1980s was founder-MD of Rochdale Amateur Orchestra. He now teaches singing, piano and theory privately, organises Rochdale's weekly Music at Lunchtime and continues to be an active musician. An original subscriber to Rochdale Music Society he has also reviewed almost every concert since 1988 as Music Correspondent to the Rochdale Observer. By way of distraction he studies Law and English with the Open University.
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A SAD FAREWELL    -   TO OUR LATE PRESIDENT

JOSEPH  FITTON   M.Sc.(Tech).,  A.T.I.,  F.R.Met.S., F.R.S.A.   1925 - 2009

   President of Rochdale Music Society 2003 – 2009 

Joe Fitton died on May 19th, 2009.  He was one of the first subscribers to, and a great benefactor of, the Rochdale Music Society formed in 1980. Joe was a man who had created about him an oasis of culture and civilization in an otherwise desert of general Philistinism. His knowledge and artistic interests and accomplishments made him a most welcome companion. Moreover, despite his wide cosmopolitan knowledge and activity, he was born locally in Whitworth, in the County of Lancaster, a county in which he took great pride, for he was truly a great Lancastrian. 

Furthermore, he was born in the inter war years in 1925, and trod the traditional path to schools at Lloyd Street, the Rochdale High School for Boys and on to U.M.I.S.T. becoming a graduate before his'call-up' at 18, when he joined the R.A.F. and bcame a meteorologist. 

He married Peggy in 1945 and was posted to Iceland on V.E. Day again forecasting for the R.A.F.  It was Joe who provided the weather information for Clement Attlee, the new Prime Minister, when he flew across the Atlantic. 

In 1947 Joe resumed his studies at Manchester University and gained an M.Sc. it was during this time he and Peggy started their family of three daughters, Valerie, Lesley and Susan. 

Meanwhile interesting developments were taking place in the world of work.  Joe had spent time working with George Taylor on whose premature death he took over Association Spinners Ltd. at the Durer Mill. Joe's father had a 'doubling' Mill in Whitworth, so the combined operation was a financial success.  Joe was, in fact, said to be the last man to leave the floor at the Royal Exchange in Manchester! 

The world of the arts was Joe's great 'stamping' ground.  A watercolour artist himself, he was considered to be an expert on English watercolours. He was a personal friend of L.S. Lowry. They visited each other regularly. He was also a close friend of Leo Solomon, in charge of the Art College in Rochdale, of which Joe was Chairman for some years. Harold Hemingway, another local artist of distinction, was also a good friend. 

As for music, Joe,  a self-taught pianist, was a regular visitor to Glyndebourne from the early times of John Christie, Leonard Ingrams' Garsington Manor Music Festivals and a Founder Member of the new Theatre at Glyndebourne. Also on Joe's regular visiting round were the Salzburg Music Festival and the Bayreuth Opera House. Joe's was a full life, which he shared with Peggy. He was a proud father of three and grandfather of five.  
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*ROTH CD Alec Roth's Quintet, commissioned by the Society and sponsored by Jane Devaney, is now available on a CD, which includes other pieces played by guitarist Morgan Szymanski. 'The Unicorn in the Garden' can be purchased from Morgan's web site.