After leaving primary school and its old buildings and poor facilities we were to move to
a new comprehensive school and it was opening for the first time,so it was a new experience
for children and teachers alike.We actually had our own full-size football pitch and with real
goalposts .It was a real culture shock after spending the past 6 yrs in our old primary school
One of my 1st ambitions was to play football for the school not to get high grades in maths
or science,we used to play schools in the Warrington area and remember reaching the cup
final one year against Bewsey we drew 2-2.I remember my uncle Herbert came to watch
I used to travel on the bus to watch Bolton Wanderers play in their home fixtures they were
a top team then in the 1st division of the football league,in those days you could virtually
pick the team that would be playing before you arrived at the ground,not like today with
its injury list.On my paper round, there was a house with a television and I can remember
watching Bolton Wanderers play Blackpool in the famous final of 1953 at Wembley,it was
known as the Stanley Mathews final and Blackpool won 4-3.
As I grew older so did my curiosity about my father.and I finally caught up with him at his
workplace,I remember asking him when he was coming home,I was still oblivious then
why we were still in this situation.I visited him once more and that time he took me back
to introduce me to his family he had 4 children and the eldest was a similar age to me.
This was to be the last time I would see him, he died on the 6th of January 1955 the
reason given was he had a thrombosis in the leg during the night,he was 52 yrs.
A funeral service was arranged at Padgate Church and remember mother Ed and me
attending, Reg was snowed in on his farm in Cornwall so was unable to make it .Mother
insisted that we should walk behind the coffin,she never did divorce father so felt it was
still her right.It was a very sombre affair with no one speaking.
Britain was starting to recover with people having money in their pockets but USA
was always a very rich country in our minds,a haircut was costing us 9 pence in
America they were paying 8 shillings.it was a long time before the gap even started to
close,the country was virtually bankrupt after the war and had to ask America for help
with our finances,after a lot of time spent in meetings a deal was finally approved.
the USAon the 15th of July 1946 and was paid off in 2006,the loan was negotiated by
John Maynard Keynes It was for$3.75 billion (2015 = $57 billion) at a low 2% interest
rate,Canada loaned $1.19billion
The final payment was made in 2006 by Ed Balls (strictly) 43million pounds to the US
and 12 million pounds to Canada.
