My father was a regular in the army; he was born in Edge Hill of Irish parents, which in the 1940s was a rough part of Liverpool. He met my mother when he came with several colleagues recruiting for his regiment in the Textile town of Macclesfield. One of h the recruits was my Uncle Arthur. He gave a false age so he could enlist, he eventually ended up in charge of a pack animal [mule] operating behind enemy lines with the Chindits in Burma, but that is another story. I wanted to join the forces like my father who eventually left the army as a Sergeant Major. But my mother had other ideas, and I was apprenticed to a building firm as a plumber heating engineer. I finished my apprenticeship at twenty one having taken and passed my Advanced City & Guilds exams at 19 years of age. [Youngest on record at the college where I studied] By twenty three I was running my own small building company. Purchasing and renovating for resale terraced cottages. Building bathroom kitchen extensions on the rear of properties that did not posses those facilities, of which in the northern industrial towns there were many. We eventually moved on at a later date to larger properties. My ambition was to own a small holding, this came available in 1983 with the purchase of a semi derelict property in the Peak National park.

 

This achievement did not come easy as my wife and I moved into; renovated and updated twelve properties beforehand in order to give us the funds to full fill my ambition. I was very fortunate that I was married for over forty six years to an unselfish woman that also shared my dream. Over the years as a business we specialised in the renovated of over eighty, mostly 16c properties. My wife Susan designed the interiors, myself and my team of two sometimes three workmen completing the internal alterations. My passion was working with English oak and natural stone, I was fortunate to have over forty years of mental therapy working with my hands, and creating using these materials, a luxury and enjoyable work that most people can only dream of, every working day was a joy! 

 

Over the years we were in business we purchased, renovated, advertised and sold over eighty properties, plus a substantial amount of private work. One of my specialities was the installation of my renovated Victorian cast iron kitchen ranges, which I installed as working models all over the country, one of only two people in the UK still with the knowledge and capable of doing this kind of work. I got a buzz; I was preserving part of our industrial heritage.

On the corner of my field we discovered the remains of the Roman Check point, hence the seeds for the story of ‘Aurthora’ Celtic Prince.