Well, perhaps ‘Introducing’ comes a bit late in the day: it’s now 35 years since we moved into the locality from Middleforth, accompanied by two small children and a cat! What a shock to think it’s so far back, and where has the time gone so quickly?

Dorothy had been born and bred in the Cadley area of Fulwood: for her it was something of a homecoming. I had been born in Southport, but from about one year old I’d grown up as a ‘woolly-back’ in the no-man’s land between Croston, Eccleston and Ulnes Walton out on the West Lancs. Plain.

We’d first met on Wednesday, 7^th September, 1949, as nervous new First Years at Balshaw’s Grammar School, Leyland. On leaving school Dorothy had gone into banking with Williams Deacons Bank (now assimiliated into the Royal Bank of Scotland) at their establishment on the corner of Fishergate and Lune Street. That was in the days when banks only employed single women: get married and you lost your job!! By the time we came to be married they had eased the rules somewhat: marrying was OK, but start a family and you were out. Haven’t things changed in our lifetime?

I had gone straight from school to two years of National Service in the RAF, mainly in Suffolk, and then on to teacher training at Culham College,Abingdon (which was in Berkshire in those days, and not Oxfordshire). Upon returning home my first teaching post was at Bolton, before coming to Preston – firstly to Roebuck Street School and then Tulketh High School.

The story of our romance and, at times, not-romance is an episode in itself, and would take up far too much space here. Believe me!

We were both raised as staunch Anglicans, although we both had roots deep in Methodism. Dorothy’s family tree includes a great granddad who was organist at Woodplumpton Chapel for well over 20 years; one set of grandparents married at Lune Street and the other set married at North Road Wesleyan. One of these granddads had suddenly ‘taken the pledge’ (if not publicly, then to himself) and had begun preaching at Penwortham’s ‘tin tabernacle’ on Pear Tree Brow.

On my side there’s an ancestor who provided the first Methodists in Crossens, Southport, with a meeting place (his cottage) and also at Southport are connections with the Marshside Road and Russell Road Chapels. Then there are other connections with the chapels at Great Harwood and Barnes Square, Clayton-le-Moors.

We came to this church along with other members of the Leyland Folk Dancers, to put on an evening’s entertainment for one of the groups (the Young Wives, we think) shortly after moving to Fulwood. Of course, some people there had grown up with Dorothy. "Hello! What are you doing here?" was repeated time and again. Then we were introduced to the Minister at that time, Mr Chesworth. "I believe you’ve just come to live in the area. Why don’t you come along to my church?" he asked. "But we’re Anglicans," we said. "So’s half the congregation!" was his reply. "But we haven’t any transport," was the next protest. "Don’t worry, I’ll send somebody round in a car for you," and sure enough Albert Atherton, who lived just a little further up our road, duly arrived at the door on the following Sunday morning!

The friendly reception that night, and on the first Sunday we attended Morning Service, made us stop and think. However, we didn’t have to think too long! A decision was made and we’ve been happy here ever since. We felt we were ‘home’. Dorothy joined the Young Wives (now matured into the After Eights) and joined the staff of Junior Church for the next 20 years. Kathy and David both grew up in the church; they were members of Junior Church and of the Brownies and Cubs respectively, and Kathy also taught in Junior Church. I was invited to become a Communion Steward and served in that capacity for 18 years. Nowadays my time’s taken up as editor of this magazine and in obtaining the adverts for it; as organiser of the Door Stewarding Rota, as a Pastoral Visitor and as MC at the occasional church barn dance; you may even have come across me trimming the hedges around the church.