Keen amateur footballer,

playing centre forward for teams

in two local leagues (between jobs.)

 

Fought in the trenches,

enlisting as a private

and demobbed as a sergeant

at officer-training school.

 

Awarded the Military Medal

during that terrible 'Kaiserschlacht'

for repelling an attack in force.

All by himself.

 

Post-war, turned down an offer

to play for Huddersfield Town

so he could marry my Grammie.

 

Once challenged a man to a race -

Whalley and back, from Clayton-le-Moors -

with him on foot, rival on bicycle.

Beat him - easily.

 

Worked at Howard And Bulloughs

until the day they retired him -

then got a job in a foundry.

 

Remarried at 82 - still working -

after my Grammie died

(four generations in attendance.)

 

Only caught one bus

in his entire life -

it was the bus they took him off

in Clitheroe that day,

when he asked the driver,

"are we in Blackpool yet?"