About the author
Brian Hales was born in Eardisley, Herefordshire, in 1937, and attended Eardisley School. When he left school, aged 15, he took up engineering. He served for three years’ National Service in the Royal Air Force Regiment. Read more...
Brian is now retired. He is married, with a daughter and two grandsons. On life in Eardisley‘...to me, and I am sure others, Eardisley still is a great place to be. It has a lot going for it with all the different activities and the country atmosphere... There is a song which goes ‘a little bit of Heaven fell in the Irish Sea. I think, a little bit of Heaven fell here, in Eardisley. |
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Early years - apprenticeship
In the spring of 1952 15-year-old Brian began his working life at Henderson’s of
Whitney-on-Wye (a three-mile cycle ride from Eardisley). Henderson’s made Girling and Lockheed brakes for cars. After just over a year he decided that engineering was the career for him, and moved to HV Webb & Son in Hay-on-Wye as an apprentice mechanic.
He signed up for five years, intending to take a mechanical engineering course (for apprentice mechanics) at night school in Three Cocks and get his indentures. But as Brian approached 18 years of age, he decided to give up his apprenticeship and do his National Service. He had the choice of signing on for the 2-year minimum or for three years; the latter had more pay and holiday and he opted for that.
National Service
Brian Hales joined the No. 1 Light Ack-Ack Squadron of the RAF Regiment, which was responsible for guarding airfields and shooting down enemy aircraft. His six-month training began in July 1955, and comprised:
- 2 months square-bashing in Padgate, near Warrington in Cheshire
- 2 months regimental training at Catterick, Yorkshire
- 2 months at ack-ack gunnery school in Watchet, Somerset.
Early in 1956 Brian was sent to Germany for 19 months – Wunstorf, near Hanover.
At an interview soon after his arrival, Brian was asked if he had a favourite sport and he answered ‘scrambling’.
‘Ah,’ said the officer, ‘I’ve got just the job for you!’. Brian was nominally a gunner in the regiment, but because of his enthusiasm for scrambling he found himself riding motorcycles as a dispatch rider, driving lorries, indeed driving anything that needed driving. One of the jobs he had at this time was running-in a military motorcycle - a Triumph 500 side-valve.
During Brian’s time in Germany he met a German family who treated him like a son. The Thorns family - Herr and Frau Thorns and children Heller, Urich and Wilfred - lived in Neustadt, a mile down the road from his camp. Herr Thorns was an engineer in Bremen. Brian called Frau Thorns ‘Mama’. When Brian was on guard duty over Christmas in 1956 the Thorns family arrived at the camp gate with lots of goodies.
National Service continued into 1956 - including three months living rough (training), one month in Berlin, and several trips of a month or so to Baltic coast for gun practice (aiming out to sea). Later his unit was prepared to Suez, but at the last minute (4 am) they stood down, because the expedition had been aborted.
Settling down
Brian met his wife - Margaret Christie - during his National Service, and when he was demobbed and went back to Eardisley in August 1958 Margaret visited and then stayed on, lodging with a Mrs Toung in nearby Kington. Brian went back to work at HV Webb’s.
On 18 July 1959 Brian and Margaret were married at St Mary Magdalene, Eardisley’s village church. The ceremony was the first to be performed by the new rector, the Revd Frank Willford.
The couple lived at first with Brian’s parents in Ashcroft (the bungalow in which Brian had been brought up). Later they moved to Rose Cottage (near the pump house in what used to be called The Common road, now Woodseaves Road) where they had no running water. A daughter - Brenda - was born in April 1961.
In 1968 they were thrilled to be offered a Council house in Canonford Avenue. Brian remembers their rent when they first moved there was £1 2s 6d a week.
A mechanic’s life
In the early 1960s Brian worked for Bengry Plant Hire in Kingsland, later moving to Herefordshire County Council’s Newtown Road depot in Hereford, where he worked as a mechanic on all the Council’s vehicles and equipment - lorries, vans, tractors, lawnmowers.
In 1968 he moved to work (as an employee) for his brother John and brother-in-law Norman’s plant hire company - JW Hales & Co. Ltd. Here Brian operated a brand new Blaw-Knox machine owned by the company. The machine was hired out together with the operator, so Brian found himself working for Brecon Council, Hereford Council and Radnorshire Council.
In 1973 John and Norman gave up the business and went their separate ways. Brian then became a sole trading contractor and worked on his own for the next 17 years.
In 1990 he joined Welsh Water, visiting pumping stations to check all the plant was operating properly.
In 1998 he retired early on grounds of ill-health (soon after he had a heart bypass) and not long into retirement decided to write a book... The rest is history.
Melanie Thompson
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