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- I was adopted in December 1933 and brought up in Lancashire by my adoptive parents. I attended FGS and the University of Leeds, where I gained a B.A. (French, Latin and Spanish) and the Postgraduate Certificate in Education.
- After university I did my two years' National Service, mostly as Sergeant Instructor in the Educational Corps.
- In 1955 I married my first wife, Averil Catherine (née Stamp), and our daughter Carol Anne was born in 1956.
- My first wife died in 1979, aged 46, but I was fortunate to meet and marry my second wife, Audrey (née Walsh, also recently widowed). I adopted her daughter Justine and we have had 22 years of happy marriage. We have five grandchildren: two girls by Carol and three boys by Justine.
- I taught French, Spanish and Latin at Northampton Grammar School (1956-1958), Worksop (1958-1968) and Warrington (1969-1989), at the last two schools as Head of Modern Languages. We moved to Lymm, Cheshire, in 1969, where we still live.
- I've always enjoyed sport and was Captain of Cricket and Vice-Captain of Soccer at school and a member of the University football and cricket teams.
- I had piano lessons as a boy and became interested in jazz in the wartime period; this has remained a lifelong hobby. In the mid-sixties I taught myself to play trumpet and joined a jazz band in 1971, playing trumpet and piano until the mid-eighties.
- I took up golf in 1966 and have been a member of Worksop and Lymm Golf Clubs.
- Audrey has taken up golf and bridge in recent years, so these activities, together with our responsibilities as grandparents and doglovers, tend to occupy us for the majority of our time.
- After 65 years of good health I had a severe heart attack in 1997, but made a very good recovery.
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