9:00am Thursday 26th January 2012
THE motoring world lost one of its best-known local characters at the weekend with the death of 'Big Ali' - Alastair Dubbeldam.
The giant of a man died in Warrington Hospital on Sunday after an emergency operation for a ruptured aorta. The 58 year-old had been rushed to hospital by ambulance after being taken ill in the early hours of Sunday at the home he shared with his partner, Mary Bent.
For years Alastair was a familiar, Desperate Dan-like figure (six feet three inches tall and weighing 20-plus stones) in the Plank Lane area where his father, the late Brian Dubbeldam, ran a haulage business from the Britannia pub alongside the local pit.
"Alastair loved anything mechanical, from a snow plough to a motorbike, and also Pink Floyd," said Mary, his soul-mate for 26 years.
And she wasn't kidding. Vehicles were his life, Citroens in particular, and the main dealers used to send customers down Plank Lane to him when anything awkward came in. Passers-by would ogle as he hoisted up a Citroen on his fork lift truck near the canal bridge and changed the rear suspension spheres. He had a simple solution to most things. And he also had a giant ex-council snow plough and scores of Citroens.
He didn't like authority, fools or itinerant thieves and took little notice of officialdom's attempts to get him to clean-up his Britannia site.
"It's not scrap, it's all recyclable," he'd say with a grin.
But eventually, with the reclamation of the Bickershaw pit site, he had to move and after pocketing his cheque from the North West Development Agency he smiled "well I don't suppose I'll ever need to worry about making a wage again!".
He admitted the pay-off meant he could buy virtually any car he wanted. But when he wanted to travel a few hundred miles he invariably did it in a Citroen Xantia that had cost him just £140!
His early years were spent with his family at Rindle Farm on Astley Moss. Later he went to Leigh Grammar School, became a good motocross bike rider and a mechanical wizard.
He leaves a daughter and a son from a dissolved marriage. Funeral arrangements are still to be finalised.
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