1952. While I was at St. George’s School in order to earn some pocket money I got myself a part-time job working for a local Butcher. I started just delivering orders to customers, then progressed to cutting the orders and pricing them up myself, after a few months the butcher decided I was more use to him in the shop, so although I continued cutting the meat for the orders, another lad was employed to deliver them - while I did more work in the shop.

Little did I know that this part-time job was going to effect my life to the extent it did.

1954. Having started attending Stockport Technical School I had to go there by bus because it was to far to walk, travelling to school on the bus was where I met David Bates - he was eventually to become my ‘ Best Man ‘ when I got married. He got me interested in Ballroom Dancing we were both 14 years old he could dance - I could not, so I started going with him on Monday and Thursday Nights to ‘ Bradley’s Dance Academy ‘ in Stockport. He was on the ‘ Staff ‘ which meant he could dance well enough to be able to teach girls how to dance, he got in free in exchange for teaching girls for the first 2 hours, after the 9.00 pm break he could do his own thing.

As I have always been able to grasp things quite easily with - in a few months I was also on the staff - which meant not only did I also get in free, but we also got free advanced lessons on a Sunday morning for an hour before the people who were paying for private lessons arrived, and we also made close contact with lots of girls for dates.

1956. It was at ‘ Bradley’s Dance Academy ‘ where I met Maureen for the first time { or may be it was not for the first time, see later } She walked in one Monday evening and I was not only attracted at first sight - I was In Love ! Three times that evening I asked her for a date and each time I was refused, the same happened on the Thursday evening, and the following Monday - then on that Thursday she agreed to go to the pictures with me. Since that first night we have been together ever since, apart from a period of a month during the first year together, when after a big argument she decided she wanted the company of a ‘ Brylcream Boy ‘ { RAF } who she knew, and was home on leave at the time, but it did not last and we soon got back together.

Why did I say in the first paragraph we may have met before ?
Well we found out after a while in each others company, that when she was young, every Sunday afternoon she along with her Mother & Father caught the 2.00 pm Tramcar from Mersey Square in Stockport to go to Reddish - as I did with my parents. They always went upstairs on the tram because her Father smoked a pipe - we went upstairs because I wanted a good view of the streets. They were going to visit her Grandparents - we were going to visit mine, in those days this was a regular occurrence for lots of families.

Her Grandparents lived on Woodhall Crescent, which was just a few yards past the house where mine lived on Woodhall Road. So for many years we may have queued next to each other in the same queue, travelled on the same tram maybe on the next seat, got off at the same stop, walked down the same road a few yards apart - and did the same thing a few hours later on the return trip.

I said on page 1. My Grandparents and presumably Great - Grandparents were Gypsies - well it turns out that Maureen’s Great - Grandparents were Circus people - Her Great - Grandmother being a ‘ Bare Back Rider ‘ with Omar’s Travelling Circus, { there were postcards advertising her act in the families possession at one time, but these too have gone } maybe our Great grandparents knew each other because both Gypsies and Circus people travelled around together.

1957. l left School having decided the year before that I was going to go into Butchery so I applied to Stockport Coop for a job. My family was also at this time making plans to move to Devon, and when their plans came to fruition I had just ‘ signed on ‘ with the Coop, ready for when I left school, I had a girlfriend now of over 12 months - so I said I did not want to go. As I was reasonably sensible it was decided I could stay in Stockport and not move to Devon. So in the space of 7 days at the age of 16 I left school - started work - and went into Lodgings. This is where I stayed until Maureen and myself got married.