Life & Family

Early Life

Man & Steeplejack

Danger Warnings

Getting Started

Danger & Excitement

Call Me Fred

Giving up Smoking

Jack the Lad

The New Fred

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EARLY LIFE

Fred was born in Bolton in on 28th April 1938. The family lived in a terraced house next to a big railway siding. His father worked at a bleach works from seven in the morning until 5.30 in the afternoon. It was a terrible place but its steam engines and ancient machinery fascinated the young Fred, who would often spend the school holidays there just observing them in action.

    

Fred's parents and his grandfather Travis

His grandfather, Albert Travis, was quite a famous runner back in the early 1900s. Most of the cups and trophies seen in the above picture went to pay his doctors bills in later life.

School was always hard going for Fred. The only time he ever shone was when he was about thirteen. The school was broken into and all the keys were taken. The headmaster couldn't afford to engage a locksmith for so much work but Fred saved the day by making a complete set of new keys, a skill he had learned from watching his dad who made them for a hobby. 

After a spell at art school it was off to the Youth Employment Bureau who sent the sixteen year old Fred off to a local joiner's yard, where he worked for the next six years.