My dad worked in the mill. It wasn’t a matter of getting a job when I was 15. You could go any where, decide where you wanted to go. So 15, I went into the mill. Elmfield Mill. Weaving cloth.

When I arrived they said you can’t go into the weaving shed until you’re 16 so I had to go and work with the man who delivered full bobbins to the loom and took away the empties, which were a full time job.

Then at 16 I went into the weaving shed as an apprentice. Full of looms going. That’s why I’m deaf. They make that much noise. When you first go in there you think ‘how the hell am I going to understand people’ but after a while you switch off from the sound and you can hear people talk and you learn to lip read.

I had a tough apprenticeship. They’d punch me one if I didn’t get it right. It were rough. But I learnt. And I learnt properly. After that I used to watch everyone. The four other tuners. What they did. I took the good points from each. So I finished up not bad. I became an overlooker.