Days earlier he had returned from Finland, a trip arranged by his many friends from Project Challenge at Dean Clough, Halifax. Diagnosed with cancer some months earlier, he and they knew it was his last trip.
Bearded, often unkempt and with a woolly hat seemingly grafted onto his head, Ted Howarth believed utterly in "not letting peoples' pasts get in the way of their futures." He was a man without pretension. A fixture in his Todmorden local The Rose and Crown, Ted Howarth lived a simple, uncomplicated life. He loved folk music and played both mandolin and ukulele. He had been married but leaves no children.
As founder and guiding spirit, Ted Howarth stamped his personality
on the Project Challenge charity, giving second chances to disadvantaged
and troubled teenagers. He was, everyone agreed, a true original.
Born in Dagenham, Essex, in 1946, Ted was one of five children, son
to Elizabeth and Albert - a soldier turned car worker. His early ambition
- to be a librarian - was thwarted by family poverty. After factory
work, he too became a soldier and served in special services and the
SAS. From his late 20s, after the Army, he led a restless, gipsy life,
taking on many different types of work. Eventually settling in Manchester
he found his true vocation, working with youngsters. His mix of empathy,
realism and tough love worked and, in the late 1980s he trained in
Ilkley as a youth worker. Allergic to bureaucracy, blunt, straightforward
and likable, he had a genius for relating to young people. In 1991
he established Project Challenge. He was much loved and is sorely
missed by many.
