I was born in Liverpool in 1950. My Dad had loads of bad luck and my Mum was somehow gifted with high ideals way above her life experience and station. I was brought up in a small semi-detached house in West Kirby on the Wirral. My childhood suffered from extreme disharmony between my parents. Looking back I was often a very unhappy child.
My grandfather was a coal miner, he served as an army medic in the first world war and because doctors would not go down the coal mines, for fear of their own safety, he not only hacked coal all day but was the first port of call when accidents happened.
He was a hard man who showed me little love but he gave me a precious gift. One day as a young boy I watched him stripped to the waist scrubbing the coal dust from his skin. The back scullery was crude but like the outside lavatory, it was immaculately clean. There was no bathroom.
The soap suds looked interesting to my young eyes and I asked my ‘Papa’ if he was enjoying himself. His response released fury. I thought he might strike me but instead, he offered the following advice. I cannot remember anything else he ever said to me.
‘What ever you do in life make something of your self. Never ever give up and whatever you do never bow down to others and let them master your will. Work hard and be honest and don’t ever accept that anything is beyond you’
Quite how that advice registered or became part of my being I will never know but it did. The journey I have taken from that damp house in Wigan Lancashire has been an eventful one. Papa Egan thank you and to my Mum Margaret thank you to because you were there to remind and support me on my early journey
Tales of a Life Well Lived 