On starting at Leyland I was placed along with Arthur and the work consisted of bringing stores from the production stores to the Service Stores for which I worked. We worked with a vehicle which was called a Trojan. There were several in the works and I learned to drive on one. There is one in the museum at Leyland, I believe. I received my first full licence on the fourth of April 1935. The driving test law came into being on the first of that March, so when I was due for renewal in 1936, after having had a licence for one year, I was informed I would have to have a learner’s licence for three months and then sit for the driving test. This I duly did, passing my test at Preston and having to pay myself for the vast amount of seven shillings and sixpence (37 ½ new pence), quite a slice out of what I was earning then. After some months my manager took me off the Trojan and I was employed in the stores altogether, chiefly on the overseas despatch of spare parts as we had depots and customers all over the world. The events of the pre-war years consisted of George V’s Silver Jubilee in 1935. The works bosses actually allowed us to go home at 4 pm instead of 5 pm, which everyone thought rather mean. In 1936 we had three kings: George V dying in January and Edward abdicating, I think in November, and the Duke of York becoming George VI, with the present Queen mum as his Queen. In 1937, May 12th, we had a day’s holiday for the coronation. By that time I had become interested in the girl who was later to become my wife. We, Jack, Alice, Alice’s friend, Florence, all walked to Chorley to see the fireworks on Astley Park and then we walked home. That same year I turned twenty-one and came “full rate”, which was a good uplift to my mum, as in those days all one’s wages went to your mother, who, in turn, gave you “pocket money”. It was during that autumn that I began to get more serious with Alice. Eventually, on the first Sunday of the New Year 1938, I took her home to meet mum and dad. From then on we were a couple.
Continue to 12. The Clouds of War