I was born on the 16th February 1949 at 9.50 AM, in Boundary Park General hospital, Oldham, Lancashire, next to Oldham Athletic football ground. My mother’s name was Elsie Dyson Clarke who was married to my father Thomas George Clarke some time after the war. She informed me that this hospital was next to Oldham Athletic football ground.
Photo 2 Boundary Park Hospital (Where David was born)
We lived with my mother’s father in his house at 26 Fleet Street, Clarksfield, Oldham. My granddad’s name was Watts Ormrod and he was a retired craftsman and senior member of a Trades Union. His hair was white which I am told happened due to an accident at work, a large rivet was pushed through his hand. I had a brother, who was two and a half years older than I, Micheal John (spelt Micheal instead of Michael due to my mother’s stubbornness when he was named at the registrar’s office. The official informed her that the way she had spelt Michael was in fact wrong and my mum reacted at being corrected and insisted it would be spelt just as she had written it). My mum and dad were both in the armed forces and were very proud to be British. Dad was in the Royal Army and mum was in the Royal Air Force.
Photo 3 Thomas George Clarke ( dad) Photo 4 Elsie Dyson Clarke (Mum)
I was Christened at Christ’s Church, Glodwick and my Godfather David Maltby of 382 Barton Road, Stretford was a sideman at the Church on Barton Road, Stretford. He gave me at that time a bible with a text of scripture written on the inside cover. Prov. 3. 6 “In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths “.
I have found a baptism certificate dated 3 rd April 1949 where it states I became a member of Christ , the child of God, and an inheritor of the “Kingdom of Heaven”. This however is wrong as I did not become a member of Christ until I was born again on the 16 Th January 1971, which I speak about later.
Photo 5 David’s Baptismal Certificate 3 rd April 1949
I can remember attending the church and Sunday school at Christchurch , which was just along the road from our house in Fleet Street . On one occasion I was so cosy ,sitting on the pew, I fell asleep and woke up with a jolt wondering where I was , just as the vicar had finished his sermon. I had been lulled into sleep by the stimulating sermon. I haven’t changed even to day. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old. It was my mother’s idea to take my brother and I to Sunday school.
Photo 6 St. Barbabus Sunday School Building
At Sunday school I can remember we painted pictures of houses and I still remember wondering why did the teacher draw the house with the door in the middle of the building and windows either side. This was because I knew we lived in a house in a terrace and our door was to on side just like all the other house in the street. I had no spiritual impressions of the Lord Jesus Christ from these times.
Just across the street from our house there was a great Roman Catholic Church building and living accommodation surrounded by a high wall. It was built of red engineering bricks and several stories high with stained glass windows alone the long church building. I can remember looking up at the crooked lightening conductor and I can still get the feeling of austerity and awkwardness when wondering what was behind that wall. It produced the same feeling in me when I had the story of Toby Twirl red to me . In that story he meets a giant who lived behind a great high walled castle. I was afraid to go near or to even think of climbing the wall or trespass in the grounds. I did not know it was a Roman Catholic Church until about 25 years later when my mother informed
Photo 7 Roman Catholic Church Building
At that time I knew of no other religion than that of the Church of England, that I knew it was Church of England but I assumed my mother was right in all such matters.
Photo 8 Back Yard of 26 Fleet Street (Where David lived)
I can remember the street lamps because a man use to come around each night to light them as they were gas and he had a small ladder which he carried with him pointed at one end.
Photo 9 Back Alley at 26 Fleet Street 30
I can remember my favourite sweets were what was called Kayly It is called sherbet now. We could also buy a very small loaf of bread called a penny loaf.
At that time when I was about years old I wanted to go to another Sunday school ( I did not know at the time it was a church) which was at Lee’s Road. My mother must have taken me there before. On this occasion it was Saturday morning and I did not believe there was no Sunday school that day. After being dressed I think my mother must have humoured me and did not take me seriously I said I was going to Sunday School. I left home, I do not think my Mum realised and walked at least two miles along Balfor Street and along the busy Lee’s Road and found the building, to my disappointment all locked up. On my return I wandered off and got lost and ended up asking for help from a Laundry Shop. They put me in the window as a lost boy and called the police. I was soon returned home. I think my Mum was horrified how far I had been.
I commenced my school days at “Clarks Field” infants’ school. My brother Michael John was already attending and was in the third year when I started .
I can remember my first day at school in the classroom with other children. The ceilings were high and there were things like sandpits and black board easels and old fashion classroom desks and tables.
The girl next door, Vivian Butler, began school with me and I can remember her crying for her Mum. I can remember not feeling the need to cry and I tried to comfort her and assure her all would be well.
Photo 10 Clark’s Field Infants School
( David bottom right)
My Auntie Edith was very good to us boys and we would visit her every Saturday. She lived with my Granddad’s sister. She was called Auntie Alice. Auntie Edith would take us out to a great park in Oldham and on the way home we would call in at the chip shop. In those days chips were real chips, cooked in real fat. One of our favourite meals she would cook was potato pie, with red cabbage. In the house there was a cellar which I always liked to visit. I think at one time washing was done in the cellar.
At that time my brother was probably the only close friend I had although we were not too close. He was just there. We used to go, swimming on a Saturday morning to the “Waterhead Baths”. This type of swimming baths was typical of old fashioned baths of the time. They were small, the water green, and walls tiled cream. At the side of the pool there were slipper baths where you could sit up to your chin in hot water and carbolic soap supplied to wash with. It was very cosy. In fact the whole atmosphere was warm and cosy , not like the cold clinical swimming baths of modern times. Next door was the wash house where mum used to go at the same time to do washing.
One Saturday morning I nearly drowned and was saved by the attendant called Norman. I had tiptoed backwards and as the pool got slowly deeper and deeper I found I could not touch the bottom. It was through the providence of God that the attendant turned to see me reaching upwards out of the water. I couldn’t speak. He dived in to rescued me and I can still feel the fear today of nearly drowning.
Across the road from the swimming baths was a slaughterhouse next door to inhabited houses. We were very curious and would look through the slatted windows and see the men kill the pigs, sheep and cattle. This was awesome and ghoulish and a fearful thing but we were very curious and wanted to see how the men slew the animals. There was blood, animal intestines, animal heads bones and blood. The smell was awful and not pleasant at all and it seemed as though the pigs knew they were going to be slaughtered and their end was come. I have wondered about my brother since then as he was two and half years older than I how this may have effected him. Later on in life he demonstrated a callous way which was characteristic of killing without mercy just like these slaughter men.
About this time I can remember coming home from school and in the dusk of that day the house seemed unusually quiet. I noticed some blood on my brother’s book and my mum told me there had been an accident. My brother had fallen down a basement stairway shaft at school and landed on his back. He was concussed and I can remember then feeling how precious life was and my brother could have died through the fall. It was awesome. I still had no recollection of God during this time.
Oldham is a town in the north of England not far from the city of Manchester and during the 19 Th century was an industrial community famous for its cotton mills. In fact , my grandfather was a great supporter of the Trades Unions. As a child I can remember the old mills, red brick built with huge chimneys towering high above the buildings . Also the water reservoirs which we were always warned to stay away from. My mother had spoken about children being drowned in them and this was sufficient for me to obey her.
Photo 11 Typical Mill at Oldham
09 Garston Infants School
My Mum took me to my first day at school. I was in the second year of the infants. My mum had arranged for me to walk home with a girl called Vivian who apparently lived in Coates Way were we lived. Not that I knew my address because I didn’t. All I knew was we had move to a place called Garston so I assumed we lived in Garston Road.
When it came to walking home I had to follow Vivian but she took me by a way I had never been before. A completely different way and across a park to what was the other end of Coates Way. She left me there and I had no Idea where I was as I did not recognise anywhere at all. Feeling uneasy about all this I realised I was now lost. So I made my way back towards the school and began to ask people where Garston Road was. There was no such place but I insisted I lived in Garston Road. A man with a Bedford dormobile offered to take me back to school to find out where I live so off we went. The schoolteacher said I live in Coates Way where Vivian had took me but I said I didn’t live there as I could not recognise the place. The man took me back to Coates Way but I could not recognise where I lived. He drove from one end to the other . It was quite a long Way with a Council estate on one end and private houses at the other end. This was where I lived 149 Coates Way. I saw my Mum in the front garden - so I arrived home after being lost on my first day at school.
My classroom teacher was a German women called Miss Kitchinger. She spoke with a German accent and I spoke with broad Lancashire accent. We did not hit it off and I was hopeless at reading the flash cards. It seemed as though I was singled out and proved to be a dunce as I could not really read. Being small I think I would mess about .
One day when I arrive at school I found a pair of pumps ( they called them plimsolls ) on my desk and I did not like them being there. Feeling rather indignant I place them in the dustbin. I think I might have asked the teacher “please Miss, whose are these pumps?” but was ignored as she did not understand me so in the bin they went.
The next day Vivian’s parent came to school wanting to find out where her plimsolls had gone. The caretaker said he had found them and placed them on my desk. When I was questioned I was in trouble and Miss Kitchinger said my mum would have to buy a new pair as I had thrown them away. I felt this unfair and really picked on. I know my mum came to the school and had an argument about the pumps and the fact that a German teacher was trying to teach English. The was only 10 years after the war had ended.
At that time my mum had to work late and it was arranged for me to wait in the classroom after school until my mum came to pick me up. This was shortly after the event with the plimsolls. The class had a pet hamster and this little creature got all the attention from every one. I was the one that got no attention but rather got into trouble. One evening whilst I was waiting in the classroom for my mum to collect me the teacher left the classroom for a short while.
I went towards the hamster cage and thought to my self why do you get all the attention. I know what I am going to do with you. I took the hamster out to the cage and closed the door. I looked the hamster in the in the eyes and went over to Vivian’s desk and put it inside, shutting the lid quickly thinking that will pay her back for getting me in trouble over her plimsolls. I sat back in my chair before the teacher returned and went home with mum as though nothing had happened.
The next day I went into class as quiet as I could and keeping out of the way. I waited patiently for the eruptions then suddenly. Oh Miss, screamed Vivian, the hamster is in my desk. It had weed and mess every where through out the night. Every one gathered around the desk to see at the same time I felt very guilty. One boy tried to suggest the hamster had escaped and climbed up the table leg and got though the whole drilled for the spilled ink to drain.
A good ideal I though keep thinking that. Then some one asked how did it get out of the cage as the door was closed. I was feeling very very guilty now and wondered if Miss Kitchinger was thinking had I done the deed the night before. I kept quiet and to this day they do not know how that hamster got there. During this time my brother was attending the Lea Farm Junior School, the school I was to attend the next year or so.
10 Congregational Sunday School
My mum use to take me to Sunday school from time to time and I didn’t mind going. One day ( about 1958) on the way home from normal school I would walked past the Congregational church building, rather a modern building, and the vicar lived in a Gypsy stile caravan in the church grounds.
The church was always left open and we often went in the church on the way home. I saw on one occasion some boys take the money out of the collection box which too was left unlocked. I could not understand this. Why where things left unlocked for boy to steel from.
One day after school I met the vicar when I was looking around the church and I asked him why is the building left open and why it the collection box not locked. His reply puzzled me. He said the church should be always open for people because God was like that and the if people fell they need to steel the collection then they must need it badly. He did not feel the box should be locked. I was puzzled and said by why ?. The vicar was sure it was the right thing to do. That stayed with me to this day and people get angry some times with me for not looking up my house.
At this same church I can remember the Easter services. I had no Idea what the gospel was nor did I understand the Easter story.
I can remember sitting in the pew during the Easter service listening to how they crucified Jesus wondering why Jesus did not come down from the cross. I felt he could have done so and confounded all them Pharisees, but why didn’t he do so. I knew the story about his death and resurrection but did not know what it all meant. I never did find out until 14 years later when I was 21 years old when I learned to read the bible for my self. It was then I learned that Jesus had to die to take away my sins. That he died in my place to set me free from sin, self and death.
It was about this time (1959) that my mum encourage me to play the piano. Mum favourite artists was Perry Como and , “Side Saddle” was a piece of mums favourite music, which I learned to play. I had music lesson with a Miss Mary Lee, a music teacher in Garston and eventually I graduated with a merit Grade 1 (Primary) RSA in Pianoforte. This was July 1960. The sort of music which was popular in those days was. “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, My Old mans a dustman by Lonnie Donnigan, Living Doll by Cliff Richards. Also the Hula-Hoop was a craze.
Living not to far away was a boy who my brother nicknamed Cecil as this sounded like a suitable name for a sissy. He was a cripple in the sense that his feet were curved inwards and he walked awkwardly he must have been about 10 years old. My brother poked fun at him and I too soon followed suite. We would sing about him a song called Cecil, Cecil a Cecil feet. He would try and avoid us.
One day Cecil came on his bike down to the woods we called the dell. We were playing up the trees and had made a catapult out off one of the branches of the trees. One person would sit in the branch and two or three other kids would pull on the rope till the branch was fully bent. The rope would be released and the person would be catapulted up in the air. They would have to hold on tightly other wise they would end up in the trees.
One this day my brother had it in for Cecil. We took his bike and put it into the catapult making sure it was catapulted up into the trees. We thought this was great fun but Cecil did not.
His mother came to our house and complained to my mum about our bullying Cedilla but my mum seemed to have no mercy. She said Cecil had got to learn to look after himself and he was a sissy. I felt mum was wrong as I knew how bad we were and my mum seemed to have no mercy. I felt bad however.
Shortly after this incident my brother encouraged me to take our newly acquired air pistols to school and Cecil was the one who my brother bullied and threaten to shoot in the playground . On reflection my brother seemed to have no mercy at all. My brother must have been in the final year and I in the first year of Lea Farm Junior School.
Photo 12 David at Lea Farm Junior School
It wasn’t long however before my air pistol was found and confiscated. After assembly one of the boys had taken it out of my desk and was running around the classroom with it when the teacher walked in. I was in trouble again with the Headmaster and this would have been another time I got the cane for bringing a dangerous weapon to school.
Micheal and I must have been about 7 and 10 years old and Mum and dad had renovated an old Ford convertible whose number plate was BBU.
Mum had bought the car whilst we were living in Oldham and dad was working in Watford. Dad had moved to Watford to get a job and was living with his mum (our grandma at Ash Tree Road Garston, Watford). Mum and dad were able to by a house at 149 Coates Way, Garston and it was mum who decided to buy the car to get Micheal and I down from Oldham to Watford.
It was this car that I often felt out when the breaks were hit. It causes me to move foreword and push open the door look and the door opened the opposite way round. I would end up on the road outside the car. Dad eventually was able to put a safety chain on the handle to stop this happening.
Dad had rebuilt the engine and painted it black and green, Mum made a new convertible top using her sewing skills. It was a bit like Noddy’s cars it was really good.
In this car we went to Brixton for a holiday and it was there mum and dad bought Micheal and I a fishing rod each. I had a wooden cane on and he had a metal rod. I remember I was always jealous of what he had as I always thought his things were better than mine were.
Keen to try the rods out near the sea harbor Micheal rushed to the waterside just around the corner and soon came back crying. He said a man had took his rod and thrown it into the sea. Dad rushed around but no on could be seen. We looked for the man on his bike but one on was to be seen. It is only now that I look back that I believe Micheal had quickly put the rod together pretended to fish by casting an imaginary line and the rod top had gone straight into the see. He probably felt he would have he told off by our dad and be in trouble. So he invented a story about a man on a bike.
When I look back it is incidences like this that I learned about the way Michael thinks and works and in latter life it made one wonders at the tales he told.
Every year the fair would come to Garston and I really looked forward to ride the dodgem cars. All the kid would go to the fair and spend lots of time watching. I can remember two brothers who worked on the fair and these were like heroes and we would wonder who was the strongest and speculate which on could life a dodgem car above their head. We would also listen to the latest pop music, which played large loudspeakers. This was before any one had personal radios or cassette players. There was no Top of the Pops on TV. So the fair was the place to hear pop music.
I was probably about 11 or 12 years old and this year I remember stealing £3 from my mum’s purse. I felt guilty and bad at the time and I still feel the shame as I write about it now but this was spent on the fair.
I am thankful for the truth that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. This became my only way of me dealing with my sin and still is.
My brother at that time had a paper round and use to get up early each morning and so he began to earn his own money. I can remember him obtaining all sort of new things like writing cases, pens, pencils, ink cartridges, etc. all the little things one would like but could not afford. I soon realised that my brother was not buying them but stealing them from the shop he worked at.
On the odd occasion I would go and help him deliver the papers. I enjoyed this as it took me to places I had never been before.
On one occasion we had to deliver papers to a hospital or residential home and around the back of the building we could see the kitchens and we could help our selves to the cakes which had been freshly cooked. I learn from my brother how easy it was to get things I wanted.
I always looked up to my brother and often envied the things he did and had. I remember him going to Switzerland with the school and him coming home with all kinds of good. Like walking stick, flick knives, badges etc.
Flick knives were illegal and to have a flick knife was a good thing.
My brother soon got in to Bow and arrows, and air rifles and pistols swords and sheath knives, all of, which seemed good to me. In fact we us to hid all these weapons under the floorboards in our shed which was at the bottom of the garden.
At this time I remember my mum and dad buying me a new bike. It was a red Californian with curved crossbars etc. I thought it was great and was ever so pleased with it.
One day the bike went missing and I knew some one had taken it so I was very upset.
When I went out looking for it I noticed up the road an accident had taken place as there were cars stopped and people milling around. To my horror I saw my nice new bike crumpled and just lying at the side of the road. The boy who had taken it had been knocked off the bike and was lying in the road awaiting an ambulance and every one was trying to take care of him.
I though to my self never mind about him, as he had stolen my bike, look at my new bike all bent. I was very upset. No one however took any notice of me neither were they concerned about my bike being damaged. The boy’s name was Michael Abbes and had been friends until recently and I seem to remember he had broken his leg or legs in the accident.
14 A Stolen Crystal Set
My interest in radio, which we now call electronics, started the day I heard a crystal set operate. I must have been 11 or 12 years old.
My mum and dad belonged to the Camping Club of Great Britain and every weekend we would go camping to Chertsey where we had a tent pitched.
Photo 13 Dad at Chersty campsite Photo 14 Dad by our canoe
One weekend my brother stole a crystal set from a camper’s tent. It consisted of a small tuning capacitor in a blue plastic case and a crystal diode together with a set of headphones was amassed as it worked and became interested in radio from that day forward.
I sent away for a set of parts to build a, two transistor, reflex receiver, and put the thing together, as best I could. I wired the circuit as I thought the diagram showed and crushed it all together to fit inside its plastic case. It didn’t work and I was most disappointed. I didn’t realise that all the wires were shorted together when I crushed it into the plastic case. Another friend of mine’s dad helped me out. He was a radio technician in the Royal Air force and he rebuilt the receiver and showed me how to wire circuits up. From that time I began to learn about how things worked and taught my self-many things with the help of others.
Another friend of mine had a dad who had a radio workshop and I was very envious of all the equipment he had in his garage. I remember the boy being confident enough to take apart out of an old radio for me without any sense of fear. I was quite impressed.
I taught my self quite a lot and began to learn about transistors.
One day on the way home from school we climbed over the fence of someone’s back garden and discovered a shed full of radio parts and equipment. There were valves, tuning condensers, transformers etc., we took what we wanted and thought no more of it.
This hobby was to last me a long time and helped lead me to a job in radio and television servicing and to Technical College. During this time I had no sense or knowledge of God and I had stopped going to Sunday School.
When we moved to Wilstone, a village near Tring in Hertfordshire, my radio and television hobby helped me pass the time and kept me out of too much trouble.
15 Move To Wilstone
In 1962 we finally moved to Wilstone a village near Tring and both my brother and went to Tring Secondary modern school. I can remember my brother wearing winkle picker shoes and some of the girls from the next village couldn’t help but say oh look at those shoe. They were just different and I suppose they felt threatened.
It was during this time a Wilstone I taught myself more about Radio and amplifiers and became absolved in this hobby. On one occasion I was able to connect a microphone up to an amplifier and I directed the speaker out of my bedroom window and spoke to people out side our shop. On this occasion I saw a women in her rear garden called Ethel and I called out with the amplifier as loud as possible saying Ethel, Ethel I am watching you. I heard many years latter that she though it sounded a bit like God speaking from the sky.
It was during this time at Wilstone my brother got sent to his first spell in Detention Centre. He had made a knuckle-duster at school, in the metal work classes, and tried it out by hitting some boy in the village.
What happened was some lads had found our mopped in the field and had a go at riding it without our permission. Not that they would know who to ask but my brother felt he would sort them out for riding it. I think it was an excuse to use the knuckle-duster he had made.
When the police were called in he made out the knuckle duster was made as a part for the moped and my mum was certain this was true and she defended my brother to the hilt. I knew it wasn’t, true and my brother did a spell in Detention centre for 3 month, for grievous bodily harm. I did not go along with my brother violence and could not understand it. Reputations spread and at school teachers began to identify me with my brother and I think they began to be wary of me too.
My brother mixed with all the lads who had bad reputations and no one would dare up set.
16 Our Move To Aylesbury
After about 18 months we move from Wilstone to Aylesbury as mum found the shop work just too hard and she almost had a nervous breakdown. Whilst living at Wilstone I leaned to ride a moped. This was around an orchard and eventually when we finally move from Wilstone to Aylesbury and took the engine from the moped with me. I put this 50 cc NSU Quickly engine in a home made go kart. We moved to a brand new house on a new Bedgrove housing estate and it was here I made my first go kart out of builder’s wood and the 50-cc NSU engine. I use a set of three wheeler rear wheels and various parts from a cement mixer and began to ride this machine around the new roads on the housing estate. I was eventually stopped by the local police and warned that it was illegal to ride this go cart on the roads and soon after that the local news paper came and gave me a write up in the Bucks Herald.
17 David’s Do It Your Self-Kart
Photo 15 David’s do it your self kart (May 1963) 48