Dad had a huge garden: he’d almost one hundred rose bushes at the front and a large vegetable garden at the rear including several dozen fruit bushes and some trees. I helped in the garden occasionally, but had no real interest as a child. I probably absorbed quite a bit of horticultural knowledge, because when […]
Hardly a long-lasting hobby, this was something that I enjoyed for a few weeks over the winter period as an alternative to watching TV in the mid 1980s. It was basically painting by numbers but using wood veneer. The process was to use a scalpel to cut out shapes from different types of wood veneer […]
I was sent from work on an Outward Bound course for three weeks in the summer of 1978 and enjoyed it immensely. I went to Aberdovey, which is a sailing school in mid-Wales, so many of the activities were water-based. Since I wasn’t a strong swimmer, I wasn’t really looking forward to it that much, […]
I started this hobby simply because many of my mates at the time were enthusiasts: it felt like it was the thing to do. In the toolroom at ROF Chorley, several people played and talked about it incessantly, and so I picked up a cheap set of clubs and joined them. I must have played […]
I can’t remember when I first developed an interest in photography, but I must only have been about fourteen or fifteen. I’d wanted to take up photography as a hobby for a long time, perhaps starting when I realised that I loved art, but couldn’t sketch or paint. My Uncle Bill (a cousin of my […]
I became a member of Horwich Cycling club in November 1973. The club was very old fashioned and right from the start, I was fascinated by the monthly meetings which were run on a very formal basis. The meetings were held in the old Horwich Council Chambers on polished tables laid out in a horseshoe […]
Lapidary is the art of cutting, polishing and engraving precious stones, and in my case, it was limited to just the polishing part, and only with semi-precious stones. I’m not sure how my interest started, but I remember asking Mum for a stone polishing kit for Christmas in 1974. My mum’s cousin, Aunty Marie accompanied […]
Over the years I have enjoyed many hobbies and interests, the most constant being reading and gardening. Cycling too, but I did take a 20-year break from this. I suppose I must also declare another interest, which is writing. I find that I can be quite creative once I start writing, although I do need […]
From being a very young boy, I always had a keen interest in cars, even though my parents never owned one. I went to the motor show every year from the mid 1970s, and collected all the brochures I could find. I was able to quote statistics and data from these and also from the […]
In 1992, I had other concerns rather than the size of my music collection, namely children. In 1991, Geraldine had sadly suffered a miscarriage, and although prior to this, I was quite relaxed about starting a family, this event brought my thoughts into clear focus, and I then fully realised that I wanted to be […]