Elder brother Arnold had spent a short time working in Dad's building firm, but he had left when he qualified as a teacher of Handicrafts. I was welcomed into the business, and perhaps it was thought that I would take it up in place of Arnold. True, I did a little work, such as making a detail drawing of a new pitch pine structure - something to do with a gallery, as I recall - for Father Aspinall at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. I hope it's still there. I even lettered a few coffin plates in emergencies when there was no time for the usual engraving, or to save money for a poor family. On one occasion only, one evening when Dad was out at a Council meeting, I took the undertaker's black folding boards and trestles down to a house in Harrison Drive in the North Valley, where an old man had died. I helped lay him out, measured him and took particulars. Dad was horrified when he got home. It was the first time I had ever touched a warm corpse. But I was never cut out for humdrum business. Bookkeeping was anathema to me, though I occasionally did the weekly wages from the men's timesheets. As for getting out the bills, that was beyond me. I did however find out that the firm had a lot of debtors, and recall the writing off of a number of bad debts.

Grandad Werrett shared his time between the office work, me, and the visiting parsons, until at last he proved to be too much of a liability, and he stopped coming. That was about the time that he retired also from his evangelical work, and his worshippers in Nelson, where he lived, gave him a party to celebrate 40 years of Bible thumping. Younger sister then helped out with the bookkeeping, and later she drove the men out to jobs occasionally.

An opportunity arose for a scholarship to Manchester College of Technology, and Dad took me for an interview, without really telling me what it was all about. Quite obviously I gave the wrong answers, and we heard no more. Then a vacancy arose for an articled pupil with the Borough Engineer, I managed to get it, and started at Colne Town Hall in 1934. The second son had left the family business. It seems to me now that Dad must have been rather sad about all this, but he told me, as he had probably told my brother, that I was wasted in the building business. But perhaps I was just not good enough. Either way, Dad was left to struggle alone through the terrible depression years of the mid-1930s.

As an articled pupil in a general purpose Engineering Department, there was lots of first-hand experience to be gained of those depression years. Men were given short spells of work as general labourers so that they could earn stamps on their employment cards, and they came and went continually as the Council tried to organise unemployment relief work on the roads - the Bradford Scheme, as it was called. Extra allotment gardens were set out in the corners of some recreation grounds - called 'unemployed allotments'. I personally kept the lists of those allotments and their tenants, and was supposed to collect the nominal rents. Many were never collected. It was absolutely true that in those days the unemployed stayed in bed late in the mornings to keep warm and to stave off their hunger.

The Council had started Slum Clearance, and my job was to work out window areas by the duo-decimal system from dimensions given to us by the Health Department. The amount of daylight and openable window was a vital factor in assessing whether or not a dwelling was fit for human habitation. As a general dogsbody I also had to check the reports and then run off the stencils manually on a machine closeted in a cubby hole under the Town Hall main staircase. All this was in preparation for the big Public Inquiry, which I was privileged to attend as a spectator. The Waterside Inquiry involved 113 dwellings, mostly back-to-back and basement slums. Colne's new Town Clerk, Lionel Aubrey Venables, did battle with solicitors and barristers over those 113 properties. To cater for the displaced slum dwellers the Council were building houses on the north side of the town as fast as they could. In my mind's eye there is still the fumigation van which stood in a rough open space near Hyde Park, and the procedure was for all the meagre possessions of the slum dwellers to be sealed in the van for debugging before the newly publicly bathed new Council tenants in their publicly washed clothes moved into the new Council houses. They moved from privies, shared outside taps and tin tubs to WCs and bathrooms in the process.

Articled pupilage in those days involved going to Burnley Technical College part time, and that meant two days and four evenings per week. It was necessary for me to devise my own course in order to qualify as a Municipal and Civil Engineer, taking the external London University Engineering Degree course plus sessions in the Building Department - for construction - and the Mining Department - for land surveying and spherical trigonometry. Seven years of hard slogging, punctuated by examinations, mostly in London. On the day I set out for London to sit an Intermediate Examination, Dad came into my bedroom. I expected him to wish me luck in the examination, but his words were 'be careful of the Jezebels'. Typical Baptist Lay Preacher. Amazingly, I was in fact accosted by a girl in the London night smog, and Dad's warning was timely. Over the years I can recall only once when my parents asked about my studies. Presumably the knowledge that I was at nightschool four nights and then swotting up in my room at home was enough for them.

The friends from Lord Street School, then the Grammar School, stayed together in a gang; and what a gang it was. There were about sixteen of us altogether, boys and girls. On Saturday nights we went to the Pictures, usually to one of the better places in Nelson three miles away. We always negotiated a reduction for a block booking. We also called in a cafe for coffee and biscuits, and virtually took over. On summer Sunday evenings, after Church, we would go long walks together. Once in a while we would set off at midnight to walk to the top of Pendle Hill (1827 ft.) and sit down to watch the sun rise above the clouds. In the winter evenings we did the rounds of each other's homes, with milky coffee and biscuits, and party games or board games and a sing-song. A little incidental and communal petting, but that was shared around, and quite platonic. We also went to the local dances, dressy affairs, all very proper. And when six of us reached our 21st birthdays we held one big party, booking the Co-op Ballroom and Restaurant and a big band; it was one of Colne's events of the year. That year was 1937, and we were reading about Adolf Hitler.

My father's work on the Council took more and more of his time, and eventually he served as Mayor for two years, 1935 to 1937. A very special honour accompanied the Mayoralty in those days - two decorative gas lamps were erected at our front gate. The glasses of the lamps were painted with the Borough Coat of Arms. There was one hilarious occasion when the same lamps were placed in front of the premises of the Mayor of the particular year; he was proprietor of a fish and chip shop. Dad had the historic duty during his term of office of making two Royal Proclamations - firstly for the Accession of King Edward VIII in January 1936, then later for the Abdication of the uncrowned King and the Accession of King George VI. Mother revelled in her part as Mayoress, and was much in demand as a speaker and patron. They met the King and Queen on 17 May 1938, when a special stand was erected in Hyde Park, not far from the spot where the fumigation vehicle was located when required, in readiness for the slum clearance evacuees.

On another occasion Dad welcomed the Duke of Gloucester when he came to open a new Boys' Club. Colne was clearly well thought of by Royalty.

In spite of studies and work in Articles, there was time for tennis at Regent Tennis Club in the Priestfield Estate, soccer with the Old Boy's team, and amateur theatricals with Colne Dramatic Society. I was stagestruck, and followed the repertory companies and their mixed fortunes in the area. We revelled in such drama as Maria Marten and the Red Barn Mystery, The Mill on the Floss, and The Dumb Man of Manchester. In particular there was Wally Thomas, whose repertory performed for a short time at the King's Theatre - locally known as the Laugh and Scratch - then in the Municipal Hall, and for a time in the Tivoli Theatre in Nelson. The company collapsed in the Municipal Hall, Wally Thomas left a lot of scenery as part payment, and Colne Dramatic Society took it over. We put on plays at the Municipal Hall, ranging from Aldwych Farces to heavy Drama. Playwrights like Clemence Dane, Galsworthy and Barrie were the rage; not a dry eye in the house at times. We took our talents to Morecambe and Blackpool to compete in Drama Festivals. Some of our members in fact turned professional eventually. Strangely, neither my parents nor my brother ever came to see me on stage, as far as I can remember, but younger sister Winifred came, and took up my hobby also. A small number of us had the exciting experience of going to the BBC in Manchester for auditions for the wireless. We heard nothing more afterwards.

Trinity Baptist Chapel took up a lot of my time, particularly as I was involved in producing a Pantomime and plays for them. But much nearer our home there was a little Church of England Mission called St. George's, and most of our gang attended there. Sunday therefore meant morning service and afternoon Sunday School with the Baptists, and evensong with the Church of England. Soon I was involved in stage productions at St. George's also. Oh yes, I was stagestruck.

The Gang - particularly the boys - were so close that we even maintained contact with the old school. Our two favourite old teachers, Claude Watts and Mr. Pearce (known as pr) joined us to form a small all-male group, and once a month or so we met in rotation at the home of one of us. And we drank beer and ate sandwiches instead of the coffee and biscuits favoured by the Gang. One night the 'men' were in my home, my parents having obligingly gone out for the evening, and sister Gladys came home a little early, discovered us with glasses of beer, and gave us all a severe lecture. That was before she married a homemade wine enthusiast.

The strange alliance of staff and Old Boys took another turn when we launched the School camps, and for a few years we ran them, visiting the Isle of Man, Jersey and Southwest England. Jack Beddoe, a young teacher, joined us later for these. The freedom and uninhibited enjoyment of those School camps with Watts and Pearce are treasured memories. Highlights of the camping holidays were those in Dartmouth, when we old pupils would row from Dartmouth upriver and back, getting as far as Totnes, with the tides to help us. One evening in Dartmouth Mr. Pearce blew a referee's whistle to call in the younger boys for the last bus - and he stopped play in a water polo match being played in the inner boat basin where we had our rendezvous point.

Another interest developed in those years; the motor car. The family's first car was an open topped Rover with a nickel plated radiator and a rear dickey seat which doubled as a sort of boot. Arnold was the driver. Later we had a Morris saloon - called a cabriolet model - and it had a Rexine covered roof. One day a hole was burnt in the Rexine by a cinder. There was a marvellous Wolseley Hornet, a 6-cylinder engine in a small body, and it was the first car I drove - a year before it was legal for me to do so. Then we had a huge Armstrong Siddeley with a Wilson gearbox and preselector gear lever mounted on the steering column. Friends had other makes, including Chryslers, Lagondas and Alvis, a T series MG sports, and even a model T Ford. Walter Smith, the fellmonger and fellow Councillor with my father, had a long black SS Jaguar, which I drove once. Subsequent events led to the prefix SS being omitted from the name. Then my brother and I shared a Ford Popular, a small duck-egg coloured basic runabout which cost £80 new. In those days the driver could not change gear without doing the double declutch, there were no servo-assisted brakes or power steering, and there was a retard lever to help avoid pinking. Cars had to have their engines decarbonised - or "decoked"- at intervals, and after a time the cylinders needed reboring and perhaps resleeving. There was little choice as regards petrol, and the cheapest was ROP (Russian Oil Products), which was probably State subsidised by the Soviet Union.

This interest in cars prompted one of my friends, Frank Duckworth and me to make a weekend trip to Northern Ireland to watch the Newtownards road races. Famous drivers were there - Prince Birabongse of Siam, known as B.Bira, Earl Howe and Brian Rix, all driving big green Bentleys. Freddie Dixon won in his MG, but the Bentleys thrilled the crowds as they hurtled into the town Square and turned sharply with a roar of split-second gear changes as they approached the Town Hall, with its wall faced with bales of straw. Unhappily there was a fatal accident, several spectators being killed when a car ran off the road and into the crowd, and that was the end of the Newtownards races. After the races Frank and I took the train back to Belfast and went to a luxurious cinema to see Charlie Chaplin in "Modern Times". Heady days.

Because of Dad's involvement with the Council, and because of my articled pupilage with the Borough Engineer, political matters were very much part of daily experience. Dad fought his elections as an Independent, and I drove the car around to pick up voters. He had a particular friend - also Independent - in Ernest Foulds, an engineer with a successful business making lifts. Ernest Foulds should always be remembered as the man who saved a pretty and historic village - Wycoller - from being drowned to provide a reservoir for Colne's water supply. He insisted in exploring the sandstone for an aquifer, and the resulting borehole was probably one of the most important single economic and engineering achievements Colne has ever experienced. An entirely new idea was tried out in that borehole; Ernest plumped for a submersible pump. I think that one firm went bust in the process, but Colne got its new water supply, with water to spare for sale to neighbouring local authorities, with the minimum of disturbance above ground - and Wycoller was saved, to become a tourist attraction and a little spot for Colners to visit on a summer day.

This independent spirit and campaigning zeal was not confined to the Councillors of our small town. At Parliamentary level - Colne and Nelson was our constituency - the famous Arthur Greenwood was defeated in 1931 by Lynton Thorp KC, a Conservative and ex-Army Officer, who wore a monocle to disguise his eye lost in battle. He resigned the Conservative whip in 1935 in a fight for the Cotton Industry on which Colne depended, and he became an "Independent Cotton" candidate. Dad admired him for that. Alas, that year came the General Election, and I was privileged to be directed to Nelson Town Hall to help count the votes. Lynton Thorp lost - and a subsequently famous man succeeded him. That man was Sidney Silverman, a Liverpool lawyer and a Jew. For over 30 years Silverman represented Nelson and Colne for Labour, and his career in Parliament was one unremitting struggle for human rights, for peace, and for abolition of the death penalty, which he achieved in 1965. I shall never forget going to the House, many years after leaving Colne, and listening to Silverman and the then Home Secretary, Chuter Ede, deliver outstanding speeches in a free vote motion concerning the ban on certain unwelcome foreign nationals who wished to visit Britain. Oh yes, Colne can boast about its famous men and its campaigning zeal.

Whilst on the subject of politics and Peace, it is perhaps worth remembering one College Prizegiving in Burnley, when I shook the hand of George Lansbury, the pacifist Labour politician. That was not remarkable, but his address was. He spoke about Love; and Hitler was just across the water in Germany. You could have heard a pin drop. He was right, of course - just ahead of his time.

During 1936, a fateful year, the Germans reoccupied Rhineland, Italy annexed Ethiopia, France began to rearm, Spain plunged into Civil War, the Rome-Berlin Axis was formed, and the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact was signed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There was no guarantee of a job in Colne Town Hall once Articles had finished, and so after my four years of pupilage I looked elsewhere. Happily for me a junior post was advertised in Burnley, seven miles away - a stroke of luck, because my college was there also. In 1938 my first salaried engineering job started. The Borough Engineer was John L. Beckett, a tall, imposing man, a hard worker, an excellent tennis player, and a bit of a Bridge fanatic. I was lucky to find employment in those days of the Depression. University Graduates were glad to take on labourers' jobs at places like Smith's Fellmongers - stinking jobs on the vats where sheepskins were soaked. In Burnley Town Hall engineers several years my senior were still swotting hard, some of them by correspondence course, and because of the unemployment situation they impressed upon me the need to gain at least two qualifications in engineering and surveying. Day release for College was finished now that I was in a salaried post, and I had to manage with evening classes. Burnley was a County Borough, and much bigger than Colne. John L. Beckett was a hard worker, and the drawing office had a wide range of major jobs. Even a junior was fully accountable. It was hard; it was great.

Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the atmosphere began to change. From bridgeworks, drainage and highway schemes we found ourselves looking for basements which could be strengthened. We were locating communal street shelters. We built a reinforced concrete control centre inside an old cotton mill. We dealt with Zinn shelters - prefabricated concrete affairs which had to be half buried in open ground. One day I was sent out to lay down a centre line for a possible aircraft runway, and the urgency was such that I was taking levels in pouring rain until it was impossible to write in my levelling book. In the drawing office we talked about pacifism, weekend soldiers - the Territorials - and Adolf Hitler. From being a somewhat comic character with exaggerated poses and a Charlie Chaplin moustache, hobnobbing with an equally comical fellow called Mussolini, Hitler was causing concern by calling out for lebensraum. News items about violence and demonstrations aginst the Jews were frequent. At home there was an emergent organisation called the Blackshirts, inspired by Oswald Mosley. I knew one or two Blackshirts - young men who used to go off at weekends for marches and meetings. They liked to dress up and parade. One of them showed me publications which eulogised over the Hitler phenomenon.

The political situation had a profound effect on my father. He was a mild-mannered man, softly spoken, thoughtful and generous, a great reader and a moderate. But when discussion turned to Hitler, Mussolini and the Spanish Civil War, he became a warrior. He scorned any suggestion of pacifism, and I can only assume that his memories of the War effort of 1914-18 made him determined not to let the Germans off the hook only 20 years after their defeat in his War.

The much-publicised scrap of paper waved by Neville Chamberlain after he returned from talks with Hitler probably fooled nobody, but there was nevertheless a great sense of relief. There was also a lot of talk about digging trenches, as if the trench warfare of 1914-18 had conditioned men into seeing trenches as a symbol; get your trenches ready in good time, and all will be well. Little concrete machine gun posts began to spring up in the countryside, and huge cubes or pyramids of concrete were placed at right angles to country roads. It really was too daft to laugh at, because we all knew that attack would come from the air - if not, why all the Air Raid shelters?

In the office there was even serious discussion on the possibility of Jack Beckett leading us all in a sort of military engineering corps. We were all young enough for the idea to be feasible, and one junior was a TA Officer already. Then came the news that all engineers would be in "reserved occupations" from the age of 23. In other words, we'd stay at home and build bomb shelters. The thought was appalling. There was however an escape route; the Central Register. Once one was listed on this Register, with details of qualifications and experience, there was a chance that some more worthwhile job would be offered. Some of the boys received offers, but nothing came my way.

I was working down in the Town Hall basement on the morning of Sunday 3 September 1939 when Neville Chamberlain came on the Police radio to declare War on Germany. That Sunday was a day to remember.