john horn profile

Born 19 th January 1928 in Manchester was taken into care in
March 1942 spent five months in Styal cottage homes, which now
is a a Woman's prison, before being transferred to Barnardo's were
I was sent to Golding's to learn a trade. I was sent out on job at a
coach building firm in Ware Hertfordshire in February 1945.
As the war was still on they were also making extra fuel tanks for the
Mosquito Aeroplane I was forming the petrol feed pipes and the air
ventilation pipes in between putting new panels on the coaches that
were being renovated.
In the December of that year I left to go back home to Manchester
as I was nearing 18 and would be out of Barnardo's care.
I met a lovely girl Mavis at a dinner dance and fell in love at first
sight in 1956, we got married the following Easter, we have three
children and four grand children, Mark 47, Julie 45, and Alison 42,
the grand children are Mark 25, Marik and Jasmine (twins) 14 and
Cora who will be 4 in October.
I have had a few jobs over the years sheet metal worker, manufacturing
chemist, press setter operator, and the job I liked best of all sales office
contracts clerk for the last twenty years of my working life.
I love most sports football, cricket, and snooker, I also love travel,
holidays abroad and the south coast of
England. I love music, all kinds classic, pop, country and western, folk.
I suppose my favourite singer was Frank Sinatra and song
"This is a lovely way to spend a evening"

A VERY FISHY STORY

It was late autumn in 1943 the British and American forces were training for the second front and the liberation of Europe,
we Goldings boys were also doing our bit for the war effort mostly farm work when ever we were called upon.
Harold DeBoeck the tinsmith shop master drove the Goldings tractor and if he were called out we tinsmith boys would most
times go with him.
One Monday morning when we arrived in shop we were told there was a lorry arriving and we were going to unload it, so
out we went to a large shed behind the tinsmiths shop to clean it out ready for the goods that were arriving.
About a hour later this lorry came and we started to unload it, it was some wooden crates which we carried into the shed
and placed them end to end on the floor of the shed I suppose they must have weighed about fifty six pounds then working
from the back of the shed we gradually worked forward to build steps until the stack was almost as high as the roof, there
was about four lorry loads arriving every day for a week.
With the first load an official looking man dressed in a rather posh suit arrived and ticked off each crate as they were
carried into the shed and instructed us in the way they had to be stacked, there was no writing on the crates to what they
contained and that information wasn’t coming from Harold DeBoeck or the suit, so being Goldings boys on the second day
of the unloading it was decided that some action had to be taken to find out what was in these crates, the outcome was that
one boy would trip up and drop a crate making sure it hit the ground with such force that it burst open, which it did to
reveal its contents bingo! Mystery solved for out rolled a number of tins of salmon. It seems there were about twenty-four
tins in each crate; they were for the people of Europe when we started the second front and liberated Europe.
There must have been quite a number of these food stores up and down the country at that time while we had to put up with
rationing.
In the following spring one Saturday evening the shed next to the food store caught fire which contained a number of bales
of straw and soon was burning fiercely and spreading to near by buildings one was the garage with Goldings lorry inside so
Mr Mills was sent for to get the lorry out pronto to the cheers of the boys who were helping to carry some furniture out of
another shed that was in danger of catching fire.
The fire brigade arrived from Hertford and after a short while had it under control but not before the food store was slightly
burned mostly round the doors area.
The following Monday the suit turned up again to inspect the damage and decided the crates would after be moved, so the
tinsmiths boys were lumbered again to despatch the crates on to the lorries that came for them.
I never got the chance to nick a tin of salmon maybe its just as well for didn’t I get a good rollicking of Harold DeBoeck for
tripping with the crate that burst open} yes it was I who was nominated to drop the crate.

John Horn Aberdeen House 42-45.