JIM ATHERTON

76, of Darwen

Lancashire

dialect poet MEMORY: I can remember being dragged up some steps to the old Brick School in Pilkington Street, Darwen. I screamed because I didn't want to go there and I can remember my mum pushing me through the door, saying "That's where you're staying."

CAR: We were one of the first families around our area to get a car, in 1928. It was an eight horsepower Singer with a rag top and we called it Fanny. We couldn't afford to keep it running 12 months of the year so after September we put it to bed. We put it in the garage, took the wheels off and greased it up with Vaseline. It came out when the licence started in April, and we looked forward to April 1.

HOLIDAY: We went to Prestatyn, Wales, in 1930 when I was five and stayed in a boarding house owned by someone from Darwen. There was my sister, my mum and myself. We went in the car and brought back some Welsh lamb but it was a hot day and we had two punctures on the way back, so the lamb was getting a little bit high.

JOB: I went to work at the Co-op in Darwen when I left school at 14. You had to go through an intensive examination to qualify as a grocer's assistant.

PET: Floss, a cocker spaniel, when I was 12 or 13. We saw this man exercising her at Belthorn and asked if he would like to sell her. He agreed, saying she was too small to breed from.

RECORD: Probably Fifteen Miles From The Cumberland Gap by Lonnie Donegan.

DIALECT LEARNED: I first picked up local dialect from my grandmother's knee. She came from Pickup Bank, an isolated community on the edge of Darwen. It was more or less a farming community and they had a language all of their own.

STEPS TO POETRY WRITING: When I was in my 50s I started thinking about what to do when I retired. I wrote a poem about our friends and neighbours, quizzing the husband about the wife and vice versa. They fell about. I recited it to a lady who was president of Darwen Civic Society and it snowballed from there. A book of dialect poetry, followed by English poetry and one called Tell Me Granddad, for my grandchildren, about the war. Now I produce leaflets of my poetry and sell them for £1 a time. We have raised £6,500 for charity, including for Derian House children's hospice in Chorley.