COUNCILLOR Guy Harkin, the deputy leader of Bolton Council, might one day take over the top job and be responsible for a workforce of 13,000 employees.

For the moment, however, he is content to support 75-year-old Bob Howarth until he decides to call it a day. Alan Calvert met Guy Harkin on a pleasant summer's day in Victoria Square.

THE voters in Daubhill Ward have returned Labour's Guy Harkin consistently since 1980 and he has been deputy leader of Bolton Council for nearly 20 years.

"I think this is something of a national record," he told me as we perched on the stone seats next to the town hall.

He shows nothing but respect for Bob Howarth's achievements in the top job, but he is honest when I ask him about his ambitions.

"I would hope to be leader," he told me. "But that's a matter for the Labour group."

He added: "If Bob was to retire I would stand -- I think I have served a pretty long apprenticeship."

In two years' time there could be a massive shake-up on Bolton Council, when changes to ward boundaries will put all 60 seats up for grabs.

Depending on the outcome -- Labour has a two-seat overall majority at the moment and is not bound to retain control -- Guy Harkin might find himself nearer to taking over as leader.

It is clearly a prospect he relishes.

Cllr Harkin, who is 55, was President of the Oxford Union in 1970 and one contemporary who went on to be a national journalist remembers him as a "firebrand politician".

Somebody else who made considerably less impact at the time -- Bill Clinton -- went on to be President of the United States.

Guy Harkin arrived at Oxford on a scholarship to study philosophy, politics and economics after attending St Edmund's primary school and Thornleigh College in Bolton.

He thinks the Oxford Union presidency owed more to his skill as an after dinner speaker than his politics at the time, although it was the Enoch Powell era and he was active in the anti-racism movement.

And no, he does not remember Clinton at all.

He thought the Wilson Labour government of the era was too right wing, but the election of Ted Heath's Conservative party in 1970 persuaded him to join Labour.

These days he is happy to put himself on the left of the party and says he would like to see more radical policies for the environment and transport.

After he finished university, he went on to do a masters degree at the London School of Economics before being offered a job at Nuffield College in Oxford to carry out research projects on industrial relations.

At this point he could have gone to work in America or Ireland, but chose instead to move back north.

After spells with the Workers' Educational Association in Manchester and Manchester Business School he started a lecturing career at Preston Polytechnic -- now the University of Central Lancashire -- which lasted 20 years until he took early retirement at the age of 50.

His work for the council and the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority -- he was chairman from 1985 to 1990 and has been vice chairman since then -- amounts to a full-time job these days.

"I could have worked anywhere in the world when I left university, but I chose to live here because it is my home," Cllr Harkin said.

"It is a great place and I would not choose to live anywhere else."

His home is in Wade Bank, Westhoughton, and he shares it with his wife, Colette, son Sean, aged 15, and daughter Marie, aged 13.

He tried to get into parliament in 1987, but lost to the Conservative candidate, Tom Sackville. These days you sense that he would not be happy living and working in London and is content with his life in local government in Bolton.

So do members of the public appreciate councillors' efforts?

"If you come into the business expecting people to thank you for it you are going to be disappointed," he replied. "You make a difference, I hope."

He is realistic about the difficulties facing Bolton and its citizens, citing in particular a "low-paid jobs problem".

He said: "Traditional engineering jobs have gone and been replaced by low-paid jobs," he said.

Also, he knows Bolton town centre has been hit by out of town shopping.

The "difficult" decision to go ahead with the Middlebrook development was the right one, he believes, because the contribution it makes to the town's economy would otherwise have gone to another area, such as Wigan or Bury.

He understands that a lot of firms are expressing a desire to move into Bolton town centre, but that many of the available shop units are regarded as being too small.

But he is upbeat about Bolton's future.

"I am confident that Bolton will prosper," he said.