I’m a North Yorkshire lad. I come from Leeming Bar, on the Great North Road. I was born on the Great North Road, the A1 as it is now.

Unfortunately my mum died when I was five. I don’t remember my mum much at all. She died of cancer and I think she was a poorly lady, more or less after she had me, if not before and my sister brought me up, more or less.

She - Mum- passed away, I went to live with Granny, and it wasn’t that I was too much for her, but she couldn’t afford it, because she didn’t get no kinda loan or anything then. I had two older brothers who were in the forces, they agreed to give her one and threepence a week each, then they knocked her pension down half a crown so she were no better off. You think times are hard now, you want to go back to then!

I came to Horsforth to live with my sister, at Three Farms, Springfield Mount in Horsforth.

Old Chinatown we used to call it. I lived with her for about 12 months, she were a lot older than me, about 20 years older, and eventually I got adopted,and came to Hawksworth Wood and then my life got started and I've been happy ever since.

I first came to Hawksworth in 1943/1944.

I went to Featherbank School. I don’t know what went wrong there, I don’t think I was there a month. Maybe I were a bit too thick - at that time I couldn’t read or write or anything!

Then they sent me to National. I got adopted by my Mum and Dad, who were two great people, and I came to live on Hawksworth estate.

I never found out why my parents didn’t have children, it wasn’t what you asked in those days. They gave me a smashing life, looked after me, made me feel as if I were wanted, I never looked back since.

Unfortunately, I went in the RAF to do National Service at 18, I went in there in October of 1955, and my dad had a massive heart attack at work, he worked at Kirkstall Forge, same as I did, and passed away. Luckily I was still in England at that time, and I got a week or ten days compassionate leave. Then they shipped me out to Germany where I served the rest of my two years.

I started working at the forge at 15. I went in the fitting shop and I loved it. My dad worked at the forge as a labourer. My dad wanted me to go in the tool room. I supposed because it was a more advanced and better paid job, but I didn’t like machines. I still don't like machines. Saying that I was a motor mechanic in the RAF! I can change clutches and brakes and do timings, more or less do anything you can on a car.

When I was 18, I went into the forces. I came back at 20. And my job went back at the Forge. And I believe I was the only apprentice ever, that after national service at 18 years old to go on full money at 21. Because the works manager at that time, he said I’d had far better training the two years in the RAF, than I was getting at Kirkstall Forge.

I did 40 years at Kirkstall Forge. I took redundancy when I was 55. I’ve been retired nearly 30 years, 28 years. When I was 27, 28 I asked for a job on staff, I started off as a progress chaser. When I left I was a superintendent.

We had a rolling mill at the Forge, where we rolled our own steel and we had pickling troughs, with funny substances in it!

I haven’t seen my great-granddaughter and great-grandson for about 18 months now. I get lovely letters and photographs, but it’s not the same as seeing them.