Category: Life history

Coinciding with my involvement with the Cubs, I was also on the St. Joseph’s school PTFA, helping to organise events to raise money.  I became PTFA secretary in later years, and in 2003, became chair of the committee.  I was quite willing to do my bit to help the school, especially since it was easy […]

I was never a member of the Cubs or Scouts as a boy, although I often think that I would have enjoyed it, so as my children were growing up, I was determined that they would have this opportunity.  I signed up as a Cub leader in September 1998, and I thoroughly enjoyed it the […]

I joined BJC following a recruitment visit of the Blackburn group to British Aerospace in about 1990.  My boss thought that it would be good for some of his young managers to join what was marketed as the largest out-of-hours training organisation in the UK.  I’ve just looked for it on Google, and I was […]

I like to be active, and I’m not very good at saying no to people and therefore, quite soon after I moved to Brindle, I was asked whether I wanted to join the village hall management committee.  It was sold to me as a good means of getting to know people and I’d be helping […]

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 […]