An early schoolboy yarn he told me was the time he had detention at school and was ordered to write one foolscap page about the ongoing test match at that time. Although not a full page, his report was very accurate as it read 'Rain Stopped Play'.

However the teacher was not amused and demanded a two page report instead.

I wonder if 'Bad light' would fill the second page? Probably not.

John left a good steady well paid job with good prospects at Thames Board to go to work at a "Great Job" building Ectona Fibres for an extra 6pence/hr.

The job was that great that he was paid off after 3 months.

John was invited to play cricket for his friends team. Obviously as a keen sportsman he required the essential equipment. Yes, 'The Whites' were required for such a prestigious event. He certainly looked the part apparantly, not that many seen him for long as he was bowled out on the very first bowl.

One funny bit I remember him telling me about is when he was watching a boxing match with my mam.

He was sitting on the chair whislt mam was sitting on the floor bewtween his legs watching the fight with him.

Well dad does get a bit over-enthusiastic when watching sport as we all do, like kicking the air at football trying to score, as you do.

But tonight was fight night, and as the action ensued and the tension grew he became rather over-excited and threw a lovely right hook.

Yes, so lovely he had to pick mam back up off the floor.

He didnt give her the mandatory count so she managed to see the rest of the fight out.

Dad and technology never really went together well. I was quite proud of my ZX Spectrum 48k home computer and I loved most of the games it came with, oh and so did dad. He would often wait for me to come home so I woud load him a game up on the old console as he didnt know how to do it (even though i had shown him several times).

He did manage to get the hang of it though and one day I came home from school to find him upstairs on the 'old speccy'.

He complained saying that my joystick wasn't working. "What?, you mean my Kempston Competition Pro2 top of the range joystick doesnt work". How dare he talk such jibberish I thought. But to my amazement he had managed to snap this steel handled kempston into two peices with the joystick in one hand and the base in the other. It was the quizical look on his face that amazed me when he said "I've got no idea why this thing isn't working David, maybe its a loose connection on the cable". yeah maybe you're right dad, loose connection defo.

As mentioned in other hobbies, dad was an excellent tiler and he was tiling my mates kitchen (Sean White's). He always left his bike outside and Sean said "You dont want to leave your bike out the fronts al lthe time John, it'll get nicked", and reply dad said "It's ok Sean, it'll be one of mine that nicks it".