I was born in 1942 at my grandparents' farm, Old Hall Farm, Brookhouse. I was an only child and my parents were Doris and Frank.

We moved to Caton but I seemed to spend all my time on the farm. My childhood was idyllic really and my grandad absolutely doted on me. I spent a lot of time with him and I was certainly moulded by his influence.

My dad was in the Forces of course and I didn't see much of him. I suppose lots of kids were like that in wartime, but I was fortunate with my grandad, he was lovely. His name was Jack Stackhouse and grandma was Mary. He was born in 1892 and he'd be 50 when I was born.

Once I'd got to the walking stage I seemed to go everywhere with him. We'd go out every day and he'd go and look at his livestock, not only on the farm but at various places up round Quernmore, Overton, Middleton.

We used to go to the auction mart three or four times a week. We'd be in there, have a cup o' tea and a cake, and he'd be buying and selling. He had a great eye for animals. Then we'd go across to the Alexandra, which was a wonderful hotel, and we'd go upstairs to a beautiful dining room with chandeliers.

And then we'd go into the Victoria Hotel at Morecambe and he'd give me two bob to go down to the fairground. He used to be there in the afternoon with his mates and they'd have a drink or two and a bet on the horses. He was a fantastic gambler. I would say before I was ten I'd been to every racecourse in the north of England, and never paid to get into one!

Whenever we went to a race meeting he would argue about the cost of the car park and cars would pile up behind you till we got in for nothing more-or-less. Then grandad would say: "No, you're not gonna charge for a little lad are you?" and lift me over the turnstile. He was always bartering. He was a typical farmer, never paid for anything
without bartering.

And of course that was when there was food and clothes rationing but I never felt any of that. We had our own milk and so grandma made butter and cheese; we had our own chickens. Grandad would kill pigs, which I didn't realise at the time was completely illegal, it was on the black market. And that's where I got my first football – a pig's bladder.

When they killed the pig all I wanted was the bladder. We'd blow it up and tie it and I'd be kicking it round the farmyard.

When grandad wanted a new suit, he'd go and see a tailor and he'd get some ham, some bacon, and grandad would get a suit. I remember once we were going up Great John Street in the car and the boot was full of contraband and we had a flat tyre. Grandad got a policeman to watch the car while he went for a spare tyre. And the boot was full of eggs and chickens and God knows what! I just assumed all this bartering was normal. I never felt short of anything but obviously lots of
people were.

I went to St Paul's Primary School at Brookhouse. That school was lovely and then the eleven plus came along and I went to the
grammar school. I got a good education obviously but I didn't stay on.

I was very good at history but my parents couldn't see the point. You know, you'd do history and Latin and they'd say "What kind of a job are you gonna get with that?"

So I left school at 16 and went to work at Storey's Moor Lane mills. I was a young lad in an office full of women and they frightened me to death! The office manager, Norman Mount, was the only other fella but those women, it was hilarious, they used to torment me something terrible.

And of course when you went into those weaving sheds: you could hardly see, because of all the cotton flying about, and the noise of those shuttles flying across!

Me mother worked in Low Mill at Caton and my dad worked at Williamson's and then Halton Mill and of course they were noisy places. In fact, he lost a lot of his hearing eventually.

Then I got a job in the wages office at the Royal Albert. That's where I met Margaret Onyett, she was a nurse. We got married in '63 and we've twin boys, David and Paul.

Margaret's father Bob Onyett was a lovely fella. He was a guard on the railway. When the trains were going from Green Ayre Station to Glasson Dock, they'd stop in Freeman's Wood to pick Margaret and her mates up.

We've done Margaret's family tree back to about 1600 and she's related to Margaret Boston, Lady Faversham. We met up with them for our 30th wedding anniversary and we were their guests at the Palace of Westminster.

After we got married I went in the Prison Service. I loved it at Lancaster Castle but then I got posted to Kirkham and I didn't enjoy it. Some hilarious things happened there though.

We had two tobacco barons in there – that was the currency in prison, tobacco – and we couldn't find the ill-gotten gains of these two.

Anyway, by chance, they were both discharged on the same day. And the next morning the governor's lawn had all been dug up: that's where they'd kept their money! Because the prisoners used to come out and do the officers' gardens and they'd hidden it under the governor's lawn. We all thought that was hilarious.

In 1968 we bought a boarding house in Morecambe. I carried on working at ICI and places. Then the Victoria Hotel came up and we took it over.

Then we bought the Elfordleigh hotel on Marine Road. We were in there 10 seasons and I had various sales jobs. Then I worked for one year in 1976 selling ice cream for Bruno Lewis and I took to that like a duck to water so I got my own van and did that for 20 years.

We had flats after the hotel. When we came out of those Margaret went back nursing, I sold ice cream and I retired when I was about 56. But it didn't last long and I went to work part-time in the office at Cannon Hygiene for about eight years.

About 1980 we were on holiday in Florida and I really got into American Football. I came back and wrote a letter to the NFL in New York. They sent me a lot of information including some on the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin. I was invited to a game in Florida – where I met Ray Nitschke, a legend in the Packers history, and we became great friends for many years. He used to call me 'Coach.' An ABC television crew once came over to do a story on us: they even featured my ice cream van 'cause it had a big Packers helmet on the front. Ray was a real genuine fella. He died 10 years ago.

Football has always been a big part of my life. There was a piece of ground in the middle of the estate at Caton and you couldn't walk past there without there was a game of football going on. We never had a television and we'd play football all the time, it'd be 15 a side with jackets for goalposts.

A referee called Bobby Burns, he took me and a lad called Alan Quinn through to the Lads Club when we were 15 and introduced us to a guy who's an icon in local football, Jimmy Downham. After about six months there, Jimmy told me it would be best if I went and played with a better team, it would help me to grow.

I think his idea was that I would go to Morecambe or Carnforth Rangers but Wilson Huck had already tapped my dad up for me to go to Red Rose Boys Club.

I came back to the Lads Club when I was 17. I played for Lancashire Boys Clubs and Blackburn Rovers signed me in 1959. I was only there that season. I got fed up of the travelling. And by then I was working at Storeys and you had to work some Saturday mornings and I couldn't get time off. So it was destined to fail.

I came back and played in Lancaster and then Albert Dainty asked me to play for Stockport. Well that was worse than Blackburn! I'd get there and there'd be 10 lads from Stockport and me. It's frightening – you're a teenager and you think you're confident but you're not. When you were playing in the A team you were playing against people like Nobby Stiles. I didn't find Nobby a dirty player, he was just short-sighted.

I went there for a while but I played for local teams from then on. I had a few clubs: Lads Club and Red Rose in the juniors; then I played at Lads Club Old Boys, Caton, Lansil, and then Galgate. But playing in a final at the Giant Axe, I damaged me knee and I was never any good after that. I still love football though.

I had an idea to organise a reunion of the teams that I'd played for and about 75 of us met at the Boot and Shoe in 2000. We were left with £141 so we decided to give it to the orthopaedic ward, because we'd all been in there, and they bought a TV for the ward. The next year we expanded it to all the North Lancashire League and held it at Skerton Liberal Club. It's been going for eight years now.

Three years ago, I added a sponsored walk and last year a dinner and wine tasting and we've just given 'em a cheque now for £6,000. We started off donating a television but this year I think they're buying three ECG machines, so now I feel as though we're really making a difference.

I've had a wonderful life with fantastic wife."