With our new house came the chance for me to start expanding my collection of pets. We took our cat with us, Huggy, he was a white tom cat with a large black patch on one side of the top of his head and a black tail. I had got him one day when I had seen the advert for kittens at one of my deliveries. We also had our budgie, Snowy, no prizes for guessing he was pure white. Huggy would sit and watch the bird for hours and we could only let Snowy out of the cage when Huggy was out of the house.
We had not been in the house in Skelmersdale long when I turned up with a pair of rabbits. They were Netherland dwarfs, one of the smallest breeds you could get. I built hutches for them out of old pallets and made the garden safe so they could not escape. It was not long before I was supplying Mrs Philips at the pet shop in Ormskirk again. We soon got another kitten, a black and white one this time and we called him Whiskey. Huggy tolerated him but they never really became best buddies.
The biggest responsibility that anyone can have is to be responsible for creating a new life. We decided that as we had a house and a reasonable income that it was time for us to start a family. Heather and I said we should try for a baby and everything went fine. Heather found out she was pregnant in the autumn of 1978 and she was due in June of the next year 1979. It was an exciting feeling to be told that I was going to be a dad and I could not wait to tell all the family and friends. Mum was going to be a grandparent for the first time as was my dad. We went over to Burscough to see her and tell her the good news. She was living alone with Simon by this time as the twins had both got married to the girls they had met in school. Jackie and Dolores were both Mrs Hart. She was really excited for us and offered to knit all sorts for the baby.
We went and visited my dad, who by this time was with his third wife another Pauline, to give him our news. He was working at an engineering company called Fazakerley engineering and he had met this Pauline there. I had just bought a cheap plastic 35mm camera and was experimenting with it. I had taken some pictures of Colin’s wedding and showed them to dad. He said they he thought they were that good he would give me all his photographic equipment. I was amazed at what he had given me, 35mm SLR with telephoto and wide angle lenses, an enlarger, and all the dark room equipment for developing black and white film. I wasted no time in converting our bathroom into a dark room and was soon making all my own photos. Heather really put up with me and my hobbies what with the animals in the garden and garage and now photography as well.
Everyone was so pleased for us about having the baby on the way. Heathers family were very generous with help for the imminent arrival. Heather found out early on that she was rhesus negative and that meant that if I was rhesus positive Heather or the baby might need to have a blood transfusion when it was born. I decided that the least I could do was to start donating blood. So one afternoon after I had finished my round in Liverpool I called into Central Hall on Ranelagh Street where a donor session was in progress. I parked my lorry behind Lewis’s and walked over to Central Hall. I gave my first donation and came out with a bandage on my left arm. I was fine no problems but it was a little bit difficult trying to change gear with the bandage around my elbow. If they had known I was going to be driving a lorry so soon after donating I doubt they would have let me. Donating blood is something that I have carried on all the years since then and have now given seventy one times.
Heather is such a good organiser that weeks before the baby was due everything was ready. The cot was up and the room was decorated. We had nappies galore and lots of lovely little clothes. It was going to be in the little upstairs room in between our bed room and the living room . Heather started with Braxton hicks very early in the pregnancy and was having these contractions quite regularly, it was not very comfortable for her. We had a couple of false alarms where we went to the hospital and got sent home again.
It was on our fifth wedding anniversary thirty first of May 1979 and I was delivering around Liverpool. The lorries at Hedges had recently been fitted with diesel powered fridge motors. I had to deliver a large load to a Lennons supermarket in Garston south Liverpool. The fridge motors were rather noisy and while I was parked up in the loading bay of the supermarket I turned it off. The warehouse man and his assistants came out and we all unloaded the frozen food for the shop. It probably took us about thirty minutes get all the goods off the lorry. Afterwards I had to turn the fridge back on. I climbed up on to the wing of the lorry and reached up to turn the ignition of the fridge. I suddenly lost my footing and slipped down, I was left hanging with my feet about a foot from the floor, my wedding ring was stuck on a bolt which was through the walk boars on the roof of the cab and I was hanging with my full weight on my ring finger of my left hand. I managed to get my toes onto the wheel nuts of the wagon and lift myself up. I grabbed at my hand and shouted to the warehouse man to get the first aid pack from the cab. He did not understand what I wanted at first until he saw blood dripping from my hands. He got the first aid pack and I opened my hand. My wedding ring had dug into the finger and was buried in the flesh almost at the finger tip, I slid the ring back down my finger and it left a flap of skin and flesh down to the bone almost three quarters the length of my finger. We wrapped it up it a pad and bandage and he got me in his car up to the local emergency hospital. I was seen at once I think because I was covered in quite a lot of my own blood by now. They managed to stem the bleeding and had to cut off my ring with a special cutter. I had fourteen stitches in the finger and told to rest it for a few days. They phoned my depot in Scarisbrick for me and someone came out with another driver to bring the lorry home. I managed to drive home from work even with my hand stitched up.
Three days later Heather went into proper labour and we went to the hospital, It was Sunday third of June and a fantastic sunny morning. I won’t go into the gory details but I was there when our son Nathan James was born at midday. My mum turned up at the hospital later with a lovely bunch of fresh sweet pea flowers, the scent filled the hospital ward. Now we were a real family.
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