Never in any doubt from a early age that I wanted to be a farmer . My mother was a farmers daughter from Thirsk area .Totally a country girl she passed on her knowledge and enthusiasm for farm life to her family .I seem to have taken up the challenge . My father too was of farming stock and he retained his love of the land too . We were lucky in the wear years that we were able to have the summer holidays on our uncles farm which made me even more determined to get into agriculture somehow .The big break came when Dad retired and we moved as a family to a Leicestershire village . I started on a dairy farm on 25 shillings a week
I was an avid reader and subscribed to a lot of farm journals and realised I needed to get to an Agricultural Institute or College .
I had managed a fairish school certificate . No careers advise at school so I wrote to my old headmaster at the Grammar I last attended and got a reference . Then applied to study Poultry Husbandry at Nottingham University .
Since then I got stuck in and with luck and some bloody hard work moved from Six acres and 94 hens to 100000 head and 4 farms with 750 acres .

That was in 1982 .We then had a big upheaval when the National Coal Board tried to sink mines in the Vale of Belvoir . We fought it but eventually decided to pack it in and moved out to Tasmania bringing all the gear I could plus the family .
I then started all over again . With the help of my youngest we began producing vegetables but soon moved to restart in poultry . This time in chicken production. My eldest took on the job of breeder and hatchery on his farm (60 miles along the coast ) we had about 1500 acres then .
I worked till I was 80 and had by then passed on the farm to my son.

The chicken factory has now been sold and a new venture is in the early stages . A vineyard and wedding venue . I am now 87 and am the grass keeper on the vineyard with 25 km of grass tracks between the vines to keep trimmed . The grass will soon be growing again so am looking forward to the spring and summer.

None of the above would have happened without the backing of my wonderful wife Mary . She had always said as a girl she would not marry a poultry farmer.. Good job she changed her mind .

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 43-46

Current location (optional) Tasmania

Interesting Mike. I have frequently wondered about the little lad who was at KBGS a year or so before me. Now I have a better idea.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945-50

Current location (optional) Norfolk

These posts from Mike and Denis are wonderful.
It's a pity that so few people now use this site.
It would have been great to see similar posts from lots of ex-KBGS folk.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Thanks for the comment Shaun. I enjoyed reading Denis” contribution . After some hesitation I thought “ well why not have ago “. It might be of interest to someone and I have never put anything like this out public before . Been an interesting life but I can hardly believe it has happened sometimes .
65th wedding anniversary coming up in a months time and already got a card from her majesty !

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 43-46

Current location (optional) Tasmania

Wonderful? Well that’s how you rate my contribution. Thankyou. But that’s how it was. You might e interested in a sort of follow up to my initial desire to become an architect, which I am, in some ways, still sad that the ambition failed.
Harry Harpin was my hero at KBGS. He was the one that fuelled my interest in things arty. I recounted several years ago that in mid life I began to paint and sketch and I contacted Harry, then a Priest in Italy, actually in Assisi. He remembered me and we held a brief exchange of correspondence because sadly he died shortly after I contacted him. Anyway, my interest in painting continues and for many years and certainly since my retirement over quarter of a century ago, it has been my main occupation. I have painted all over the world (but not now I’m afraid. My forreys are confined to the Uk). Anyway, to get to the point of this note, I’d been on a sketching trip to Williamsburg in Virginia and I was travelling to New York on a very slow train. It was an eight hour trip. To kill a bit of time, I’d taken out my sketch book and I had it laid out on the table, glancing through what I’d recorded in Williamsburg, making a few notes etc.. I became conscious that I was bing watched and I looked round and saw a big chap standing behind me looking over m shoulder.h. He took a step back, apologised and confessed that he’d been looking at my’pictorial journal’. He asked if I was an architect to which I replied in the negative. He then twigged that I was not an American (West Yorkshire accent!) , he pulled out his wallet, produced his card which informed me that he was the Dean of Architecture and Design at Howard University, Washington DC and asked me if I would accept an invitation to speak to his architectural students and show them my sketch books. “They spend all their time on computers and never look at things the way you do..”. I was flattered, but wasn’t going to Washington. I was going on to Boston from where he offered to fly me back to Washington. I never did get there, but by Jove, those few minutes gave me a real lift. That was fifteen years ago and we still correspond. And I think that is the nearest I ever came to becoming an architect.
Oh, and because of that experience I had on the Williamsburg/New York train, I used his phrase ‘Pictorial Journals’ to describe my sketch books.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945 - 50

Current location (optional) Norfolk

Great stories! And yes, Shaun, it’s a great pity so few people visit here to read them.

HAPPY..

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1960-1965

Current location (optional) bradford

" l thoroughly object to getting old. If you could make me 16 again, I'd give you all I've got and all I'll ever have." Felix Dennis.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 55/60

Current location (optional) Harrogate

Will you still love me when I get old, she said.

Get 'old and I'll tell you.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1953-58

Current location (optional) Brighouse