Memories of A Sankey Lad

Although now living over a thousand miles away, my memories of my childhood in Great Sankey will always be dear to me.

Brought up in Hood Lane near the Rose Inn, the endless stream of traffic passing my garden gate  heading to and from the United States Air Force base at Butonwood. I remember saying hello to Cleo Laine when the Johnny Dankworth tour bus stopped outside my house for direction to Buertonwood. She was the first coloured lady I had ever spoken to, she was only in her twenties I think.

And at night the constant roar of the aircraft engines in the test bays, the afternoon BOAC flight from New York to Manchester which came to Burtonwood as the Manchester runway was not long enough, the constant buzz of jet planes flying into Burtonwood, the Boeing WB50 weather planes based on the airfield  and of course the large dominating figure of Harry James, our next door neighbour who was a policemen at Burtonwood and his always barking dog Toby!

And walking to Great Sankey primary school across the fields, the heavy traffic on Liverpool Road, and although this was the 1950s the memories of the United Africa Company's steam wagons carrying bales of whatever from the docks to Manchester every day. I also remember clearly watching the hearse pass by our school carrying George Formby to be buried in Warrington Cemetery.

These are memories that helped make my life a good and varied one with few regrets and those memories remain with me every day. My dog is called Toby and I bought an old Warrington Corporation bus which used to pass my home on the route 78 to Kelly Hall, an American air force housing area, and now it stands proudly outside my home in the garden and still starts first time and every time !