Early in my life I left my native home and found myself amidst the mill towns of Lancashire where I was nurtured and grew before finding myself employed in one of the many weaving factories which still dominated the skyline in my younger days. I loved the work and the people but soon found that, should I wish to “stay” with my trade, fast diminishing in the wake of foreign competition, then I would have to move with any given opportunity.
I found employment in Carlisle and, still chasing secure employment, in Hawick, a great little town in the Scottish Borders, some four years later. Today I am back in the “great Border city” of Carlisle and still working in textiles.
I have always had a love of history and was quickly to learn of that part of our heritage which is totally unique in the history of Britain; the lives and times of the Border Reivers. My interest has never waned.
I consider myself to “have let lucky” to have arrived in the great Border country and to have encountered its wonderful, richly endowed past.
Long may I continue to love the rivers, hills and valleys of this beautiful and outstanding part of our island nation. Long may they help me reflect on a time now lost but far from forgotten.