Sanderson Family Tree

Whilst at Bispham Endowed School, some of David's schooling took place at a hall under a church at Beaufort Avenue, Bispham, and in a church hall on Cavendish Road, Bispham

This school relocated to Bispham Road. As of 2023, the original site on Devonshire Road is home of the Blackpool Sea Cadet Corps

According to David, he was 'kidnapped' by his grandmother (known to him as Grandma Sanderson), when his father, Cyril, was conscripted into the army as a driver in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War II. Grandma Sanderson believed that David's mother Mary couldn't cope on her own with him and all his younger siblings, so David went to Sheffield to live with Grandma Sanderson. Firstly, they lived with Grandma Sanderson's sister, Millicent, who was the wife of the farmer at White House Farm.

White House Farm looked over a valley, with a river at the bottom. It was located near to Well House Farm and not far from Christ Church in Stannington. From the farm David was able to hear, but not see, German bombs dropping on Sheffield city during the war. Presumably, this was at a later date than that of the Sheffield Blitz of 1940.
Whilst David was there, the farm had a small herd of 12 cows and some arable land. On the farm, it was David's job to cut newspaper into squares for loo paper. He did learn to milk a cow by hand, but he was told he wasn't quick enough.
At about the age of 11, he built a haystack, so David must have visited the farm after he and Grandma Sanderson moved residence from the farm. At an unspecified age, he also did a bit of gleaning on the barley fields. Also, one of David's favourite tales from being on the farm was being given charge of driving a horse and cart at harvest time. He was told to drive up to the gate from the field, but wait there. Unfortunately, he wasn't told how to stop the horse. He tried also sorts of rein movements and words, but to no avail. Thankfully, the horse knew its way home and went there forthwith, under its own directions!

Grandma Sanderson took David ice-skating once a week for a while. David had his own skates, which were black boots with blades bolted on.

Grandma Sanderson took David to watch Sheffield United (The Blades) play a few times at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. They stood in the middle of the stands. It must have been a wasted experience for David, as he didn't show much interest in football in his adult life.

With all the foolhardiness of intrepid youth, David felt the urge of having a go at sword swallowing. His Excalibur was a steel bar he had found there and about. Miraculously it went down without any long term ill effects!

Whilst living here, David's Grandma Sanderson was housekeeper to an old gentleman, a business man. David sat and played chess with the old fellow, who kept falling asleep. Whilst he was asleep, David would move the chess pieces to make sure the old chap won.

Grandma Sanderson bought him a bicycle on passing his 11 plus exam for entrance to a grammar school

The school building housed two separate grammar schools from the 1940s to 1968: High Storrs Grammar School for Boys, and High Storrs Grammar School for Girls. It was administered by the Sheffield Education Committee. As a Grade II listed building, in 2023, it accommodates a fully comprehensive school, under the name of High Storrs School.

David recounted, with all the glee of a remembered hotbloooded youth, of having his first glimpse of a female bosom, whilst at this school. This occurred when the boys were queuing for dinner whilst the girls were stripping off for PE.

Whilst at school, David got into trouble with the history teacher for not paying attention during the lesson. He had been discussing with a mate how an electronic valve (vacuum tube) works. The teacher asked David to share with him these distracting inner workings. His explanation must have been detailed enough to entertain the teacher, as David wasn't disciplined further!

Was it this church where David was an altar boy - singing in the choir? That is, until he was kicked out by the choir master for giving cheek!

David's interest in electronics, which later turned into his vocation, began early, though not without incident. Aged about 10-11, he pushed the plug for half a set of headphones into the mains socket in the attic. Unsurprisingly, it went poof! More constructively, he later built his first crystal radio set, aged 12-13.

David captured an aerial image giving it the filename mllhses.jpg. Daughter Elizabeth, interpreted the filename as Millhouses, the picture showing the area in Millhouses where David had lived. Elizabeth also recorded one possible residence of his in Sheffield as a possible rental in Cartanell Road, of which she could find no record. Did she mishear Coverdale, or the adjacent Carter Knowle Road as Cartanell Road. The phonetics support Carter Knowle Road as the more likely location. However, the latitude and longitude given in the picture correspond to a location on Coverdale Road, and this road figures more centrally in the picture, giving much more weight to Coverdale Road as his street of residence.

David went to Preston for an interview with the GPO's area engineer. As part of the interview, David was presented with a sheet of algebraic calculations to solve. The area engineer couldn't believe that anyone could get 100% correct. So David was started as a Y2WC (youth with 2 year course) with the post office in 1952, and never needed algebra again except at night school.

1 month of basic training plus 5 months of trade training as a radio mechanic

During his basic training at Catterick, David was nearly awarded a rifleman's badge, instead of going into the Royal Corps of Signals, as he showed such prowess at target work. He placed 5 bullets in a 6-inch spread. While his marksmanship was not employed during his national service, it did prove useful later for winning coconuts and goldfish at the funfair. Those moving tin ducks in the funfair shooting galleries didn't stand a chance.

After basic military and trade training, David travelled out on an army transport aircraft to Nairobi. David spent 18 months on the forces broadcasting radio station, which was located 5000ft up, 2-3 miles outside of Nairobi. Here, he was responsible for the transmitting gear. It sounded a lonely place. The broadcasting station was led by three civilians, an engineering manager, the station manager and the programme manager. There were also three 'menials' including David, doing the fixes, but of these three, David was the only one permanently on-site. The other two came and went from the barracks. This was the time of the Mau Mau rebellion, a war in the British Kenya Colony between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. So, unsurprisingly, there were also armed guards on the station, but David was only issued a firearm once, when one of his superiors was away for a short time; which he never used in anger.

David's active National Service life wasn't just restricted to the broadcasting station. He did get away from the barracks. Though he didn't have an army driving licence, he learnt to drive in East Africa - skipping from peak to peak of the undulations in the dirt roads. He often drove a 15-hundred-weight army lorry to the nearest outpost to pick up food supplies. He also travelled to Nairobi to get his hair cut 2-3 times, and holidayed east of Nairobi, based at the army leave camp in Mombasa. Here he frightened himself silly, literally fleeing from what he thought was a shark. In hindsight, he sheepishly admitted it was probably just a six-foot fish that may have looked just a weeny bit like a shark!

David's National Service career in Nairobi had both high points and low points. On the high side, he took the initiative to rig up a microphone in a church, feeding its input into the station commander's telephone wires. In this way he enabled a service to be broadcast to the forces on Christmas Day; earning congratulations for himself, for his enterprise. On the low side, David inadvertently tried to kill someone whilst erecting a 75-80 foot (23-24 m) radio mast with stay wires. A small group, under David's directions, laid the stays out on the ground and tried hoisting it, but unfortunately, it escaped from them. One poor petrified man ended up on the ground with the mast on one side of him and a stray stay on his other. This wasn't the last laugh from this radio mast either, as later when trying to tune the aerial in, it inflicted a 'radio frequency burn' on the first finger of David's right hand, via a grub screw poking out from the tuning knob. David bore the resultant scar on his finger, as a reminder, for the rest of his days.

Besides learning to drive, David also turned his hand to another skill during his time in Kenya - clockwork watch repairing. This was driven by a bit of a thoughtless accident. David had gone swimming in a pool wearing his trunks and had placed his watch in the trunk's pocket for safekeeping. Alas, when he came to retrieve the watch, it was filled with water, with a single central air bubble in it, like that in a spirit level. David took the watch apart, dried it out, and put it back together again, and either by careful workmanship or by serendipity, the watch worked again. Either way, David developed this skill further in later life repairing several family member's watches and clocks.

Lance Corporal 22948120 was discharged from National Service in January 1956, and David returned to the United Kingdom and civvy street via a regular passenger plane.

David resumed employment with GPO Telephones following demobilisation from National Service in January 1956, again stationed in Blackpool. Having earned the right qualifications through night school and other training courses (some at the GPO's Central Training School at Stone, Staffordshire - Yarnfield Park), David was first promoted to the level of 'Technician 2A', and then to 'Technical Officer' (TO). At Blackpool, he maintained large batteries, and was involved in maintaining the amplifying equipment. As a TO, David would test junctions, take routine measurements, isolating faults, and re-routing circuits, as necessary using patch panels. David, especially enjoyed visiting the exchange at night for fault finding, as at that time of the day, without other distracting noises present, he could hear the clatter from the mechanical connection selectors, and by the nature of their sounds, he could diagnose the faults.

Whilst at Blackpool, David started to gain a reputation as a strange electronics' problem solving guru. There was a problem in the pathways that sent information through the network at the exchange. David intuitively found a wire not soldered on properly and was duly congratulated by his boss for his seemingly magical detective skills.

From the rooftop of the exchange in Edward Street, David also photoed the removal of Blackpool town hall's spire.

A rented one-room bed-sit

Three rooms rented in the terraced house

At sometime after Telephone House was built in Preston (1960-64), David transferred from Blackpool exchange to work in Preston. He started at Telephone House, but was moved later to another nearby office block rented by BT.
In Preston, David ended his career at the level of 'Assistant Engineer', with three underlings. One was located in Preston, one in Bolton, and one in Carlisle. They were planning experts, counting equipment needed for network extensions.

David & Margaret bought this semi-detached property for £1800 in 1960

David was secretary of the PTA from Feb 1973 to Nov 1976

David was secretary of the Gala Committee from Sep 1978 to Sep 1983, and made a life member of the committee in 1995

Gala day saw David biking here, there, and everywhere in the morning, to make sure that the afternoon ceremony had a
running order of the parade entrant winners, and the Gazette got the names on the same day.

The engineering section at BT in Preston needed to shrink, so David negotiated early retirement.

This role involved repairing Talking Book machines which played audio books recorded across one or more tapetes.

David was the registrar for the North Lancashire and Fylde County Bowling Association

David qualified as a Crown Green Bowl's referee and officiated in this capacity or as a measurer at many league games in the Fylde. He also occasionally refereed in the earlier rounds of more prestigious competitions. One such competition was for the Talbot Trophy held at the Raikes Hall Hotel, Blackpool. Whilst there, David was complimented by one of the refereeing bigwigs for his comportment - the way that he positioned himself on the green and generally acted as a referee. He wished that David could have been on his immediate referee selection list.

Whilst a referee, David volunteered to be secretary of the Fylde branch of the North Lancashire & Fylde Bowling Referees Association

bowls.org was the website of the British Crown Green Bowling Association

David was very proud to be born a 'Sandgrown'un' and naturally fishing became a part of his life. As a sea angler he bait fished from the beach for dab and plaice, which were quite common. But David also fished in freshwater. Once, him and a mate went up to St Michael's on Wyre, and caught a small fish, possibly a trout, when up popped a game keeper. The lads had to endure a hard talking to for not having a fishing permit!

David's claim to fame as a lad was, through having a paper round, he delivered papers to the actress Violet Carson who lived near Bispham Church. Violet performed on radio, stage, and television. Her most renowned television role was as the matronly Christian widow, town gossip, and elderly battle-axe Ena Sharples in the ITV television soap opera Coronation Street. She was one of the original characters from the series debut in 1960 and would feature in the role for twenty years.

David enjoyed reading the Hotspur comic which was delivered regularly

In his younger days, David was a keen cyclist. He often ventured out into the countryside with a jam jar full of jelly to sustain him along the way. Later he was a member of the Cleveleys Cycling Road Club for 4 years.

David started playing golf at Stanley Park at Blackpool - following doctor's advice to help his back. Later he became a member of the golf club at Ashton & Lea Golf Club, Preston. There, he once came second in a competition, earning a 2-point deduction in his handicap. His final handicap was 66, 2 under par for the course average of 68 strokes.

For over three decades David loved playing and being involved in the crown green bowling scene. He played mostly for the Ashdell Bowling & Social Club (ASBC) based at King George's Playing Fields, Thornton. Here, he had many successes as a team player in the local leagues, in mixed double competitions, and as an individual player. Latterly, he also played for the Thornton NPL team based closer to home at Burn Naze.