A LOVE of horses persuaded school-leaver Denis Brown to take a job as a farm labourer. But he was soon to realise that what he had imagined to be a slow-paced pastoral life was anything but a relaxed and leisurely existence, especially during hay-making and harvesting times.

It was shortly after VE Day in 1945 when the 14-year-old Denis became a land-hand, working seven days a week during those busy periods. "My day, during the summer, always began at 8am and lasted until 9.30 at night from Monday to Friday, then until 5.30pm on Saturdays and 1pm on Sundays".

Denis stuck it out on the Rainford farm for just one summer. "But after some sage advice from the other farm labourers, I decided to go for a trade and became an apprentice painter and decorator with the St Helens firm of A. E. Slinn".

This, too, was hardly a bed of roses, recalls Denis in creating a picture of life at it used to be. Much donkey-work was expected of a new young starter, such as carting ladders, buckets and paint pots and cleaning up behind the tradesmen.

"I was taken on by Albert Slinn himself, at Boundary Road (the premises long since demolished) and was told to start on Saturday which he regarded as the start of the working week".

Instructed to report at 8am at Albert's Windle Drive home, Denis was a bit miffed to find that nobody else turned up until 40 minutes after that appointed time. Then it was off up the road to the home of Jack Pimblett, well-known local confectioner.

Denis's first task was 'spotting up' - wiping up any splashes of distemper that happened to miss the dust-sheets while the painting team tackled the kitchen ceiling.

But things brightened up around mid-morning. "Mrs Pimblett brought in a silver tray and teapot, china cups and a ready-sliced full sponge cake. I thought 'this is a bit of all right' So very different than on the farm. Boss Albert produced his morning newspaper and cigarettes and settled down for a long, relaxed break. I thought that it was all too good to be true, and yet I couldn't completely relax".

Instincts proved right, for there was plenty of muscle-straining back-bending work to share for the little apprentice.

Remembering it all now, Denis, from Gerards Lane, Sutton, in penning his reminiscences under the title of Apprentice's Tales, says: "We walked from job to job, pushing a fully-laden handcart, sometimes for considerable distances, up hill and down dale".

The cart was burdened with an assortment of ladders, the longest one plonked down the centre with paint cans placed between the treads, and with planks, buckets and dust-sheets piled up on top. This unwieldy load, when trundled through the town-centre streets, often caused traffic to slow down. "It was common to find a bus crawling up behind us."

Slithery slope

Denis encountered a major challenge when instructed to heave a towering load of painting equipment to the home of local dance-band leader Billy Haslam in Horace Street, near Boundary Road baths. Billy's wife told Denis to take the cart up the back entry to the rear of her home.

"It had been snowing and the approach to the back entry was very steep", recalls Denis. Pushing up the slithery slope proved futile, so Denis reversed the handcart and tried to drag it up by the shafts.

After much slipping and sliding, and by turning the wheels into the gutter to act as a brake at every step, Denis finally managed it - a full half-hour. later

But Denis can still look back with affection on his apprenticeship years. For one thing, it opened the doors to the then great and good of the borough. The proprietor of Ellisons, the local coach company, engaged the decorating team at Brookland, his Eccleston home, where he had a family of girls, aged five to 15, together with a baby boy.

While brewing up with the tea and sugar that the workmen always carried with them, it was discovered that milk had been forgotten. "Being the youngest, I was told to ask Mrs Ellison if she had a drop to spare. I found her in the dining room where she was quite openly breast-feeding her son. As instructed by boss Albert, I said: 'Mr Slinn says do you have a drop of milk to spare?' Was my face red!"

A mansion-style property known as The Towers, at Rainhill, was another impressive place that Denis visited. The place, with a tower structure on top, was originally owned by the Baxter family, copper refiners from Sutton. "Their coat of arms, in leaded-light windows, was set into the staircase".

Denis was given to understand that it had once been used as a military hospital. "But at that time it was occupied by Jim Forrester, manufacturer of ginger wine and something called No.10 Cocktails. He had someone mixing it with a wooden paddle in a big bath - a household bath! - in the potting shed", says Denis. "It was during the ration book period, immediately after the war, and sugar was hard to come by".

The story went that chloroform was used in some way as a sweetener. Someone became ill, and production came to an end. The stuff had to be recalled and Denis says: "I saw Jim's father-in-law, Mr Caffrey, opening the bottles and laying them in a length of wooden gutter as they drained away down a grid.

"He didn't stay idle long, but started re-filling all the bottles with cooking oil or vinegar and sold that instead". Later the premises became Tower College, the well-known private school.

THESE are just a few extracts from Denis's eventful life story. More of the same will appear here later.