Rochdale ex-pats group reunites old friends

A social media group set up for ‘ex-patriots’ of Rochdale  has reunited old school friends and rekindled past memories of Rochdale.

The group recently started a forum based on Rochdale schools. This has prompted members to relive old school memories and reunite with old school friends.

Founding member of the group, John Murphy said: “We have had a few people who went to school together meet up through our group. It is nice to see people do that and it is nice to see people talk about all of their old school memories.”

The group, which is for people who have lived or worked in Rochdale, has also launched a slideshow of pictures. John said: “We have had a great response to the video slideshow and it has been from people all over. We invite aspiring members to view the short slideshow and view Rochdale as it was.”

John, who now lives in Ireland, left Rochdale almost 30 years ago and finds the group useful to connect back with Rochdale. He said: “It is nice to reflect back and look at things and remember things how they used to be.”

The group was set up by John, along with Shelly Buxton and Jackie Kershaw, as a way for people to reminisce about Rochdale. John added: “We now have people located in the four corners of the world in our group. We have people in the USA, Canada and Australia using our group.”

As the group continues to grow, John hopes to create videos and to include voice over work in them. “I would love to find someone with a good speaking voice who has a strong Rochdale accent to do a voice over on a possible second video. It would be a narration of Rochdale that I hope to do next,” said John.

John added: “We are a polite, courteous and friendly group which I hope can move forward as much as possible. I am absolutely delighted with the response we have had so far and just hope to continue with that.”

Anyone wishing to view the slideshow created by the group can do so by visiting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxhybuU604A&list=UUMetKTdy2jekjpszKwRF-hQ