大象传媒

I was born in January 1941 in the cotton town of Rochdale. My father was away serving in the King's Own Scottish Borderers and my mother worked in textiles at various mills.My grandfather was in the Home Guard having served 25 years in the Lancashire Fuseliers during the 1st World War. I was a precocious little boy, always wanting to know everything that was going on and generally getting in the way. On this particular day in 1944, I was with my grandfather taking my mothers lunch to the factory when we came upon a comotion outside the mill. A man had been found dead in the mill lodge and he was being lifted out. I wanted to see this as I had not seen a dead body before. I pushed my way through the crowd and saw the body which had been in the water a good few days and was all bloated and black. Grandfather dragged me away telling me the man was the 'bogeyman' and if I didn't behave myself he would come to get me. As usual I took in this information with a little boy's look of awe and related the whole gory facts to my mother.
That weekend we went to stay with my grandfather who lived on the new estate below the factory. I enjoyed staying there because it meant I would get Jam-roly-poly on the Sunday after Mass. On the Sunday morning as with every morning, the milk-man arrived with his horse and cart.(milk was delivered from churns in those days, before milk bottles arrived on the scene).The horse was called Tom, one of three horses Mr Howarth had. Dick and Harry being the other two. As usual I wanted to ride on the horse but I was only allowed onto the cart. My grandmother called out to me to collect the milk jug and I ran into the house to collect it. There was a long pathway and two steps between the house and the road and I came flying out of the house and jumped the two steps. I collided with two khaki clad legs and looked skywards at the giant of a man who owned them. I let out a terrible scream as I was confronted by the tallest, blackest negro in the American Army. I threw away the jug and ran into the house and up to the bedroom and got under the clothes convinced the 'Bogeyman' had been sent to get me. No amount of cajoling and promising could get me out of that house. Do you know from that day on I cannot bring myself to drink milk. I haven't let milk pass my lips for over 60 years!