A month before last Christmas, I received a message through Friends Reunited from an old school mate of mine who I hadn’t seen for 37 years!

He wanted to see me as he had unearthed some old film footage in his loft of our school trip to Switzerland in 1967.

Our school did great summer holidays and you needed to get your name down a year in advance; so in 1966 I really wanted to go on the two weeks holiday to Interlaken and Lugano in Switzerland. All my mates in my class talked about nothing else all day and I rushed home to ask mum as dad was working afternoon shift and I was told “wait till your father comes home”.

The following morning I was told we couldn’t afford the £69 it would cost, but mum said that what I needed was a Saturday job. “I‘ll have a word with our Bob” she said. Now uncle Bob was Mums brother and he drove the big van that was “Daves” retail operation at St. Helens market. It was a real Basil Fawlty set up and attracted huge crowds when they appeared in the open market on Fridays and Saturdays selling everything from dresses, coats, shoes to crockery and electrical equipment. It was an entertainment in itself to witness the selling and banter that went on and everyone in St. Helens knew what “Daves” was and where it could be found.

Uncle Bob had fixed it for me to join “Daves” as the Saturday lad and with that my name went down on the school list for the trip to Switzerland. The deal was that I tipped up what I earned from my Saturday job and whatever the shortfall was from that mum and dad would add to it to pay for the holiday and my spending money. I needn’t have worried though!

The big furniture van had a fold down tailgate, which could be pegged open to create a level platform with the floor of the van and two top doors which could be pegged open around the van sides. The van was full of tea chests which contained the goods for sale that day and they would be laid out facing inwards in a half square outside the van to form an area for the guys to hand out the goods and take the cash.

“Sandy” who was the mouthpiece for the operation and would stand on the tailgate which I always thought was the “stage” and my job was to keep him supplied with items from the back of the van for him to flog to the waiting crowds. £5, £1, 10 shilling notes, half crowns, silver and copper were all thrown into open tea chests on either side of the stage, which acted as the cash registers. I had never seen so much money in my life!

Around 10 am, one of the guys Ronnie would grab a handful of silver, hand it to me and I would be sent off to the tea and food stall in the Victorian covered market to collect a jug of tea and coffee and the hot chicken and stuffing barm cakes that was to be our mid morning cuppa and snack. On return I would give Ronnie the change and he would tell me to put it in my pocket.

Lunch time Uncle Bob armed with his handful of silver would take me to Burkills Edinburgh Café in St. Helens; it was a bit of a posh place and it was where he went Fridays and Saturdays for his lunch. Three courses; I don’t think we even had that at Christmas and I can still remember those Bakewell tart and custard puddings, to this day when we have Bakewell tart, I always think of lunches in the Edinburgh Café.

The afternoon tea run was similar to the morning one and the change was always handed back to me!

I was a bit like a scrum half flinging those boxes out to Sandy from the back of the van, half the time I got the order of what was to be sold wrong but that didn’t matter, the crowd was in a frenzy for a bargain and most days we would sell out. One Saturday we were selling those grey Beatles suits with round collars and drainpipe trousers and Sandy stopped, “hey lad come out here, now I want to show you all what this look like”  I was measured up and sent to the back of the van to change into one of the Beatles suits and told to keep it on. Me male model and the 5th Beatle!

At the end of that Saturday I was about to change out of the Beatle suit and Sandy told me it was mine! Wow, that and wages; very often I would count up my wages and change and it would be in excess of a couple of quid. The holiday and spend for Switzerland was soon accounted for and my time working at Daves had got rid of my teenage shyness.

1967 proved to be a good year for me, I got to Switzerland and what a fantastic trip that was and then in the October Burnley signed 19 year old Colin Waldron from Chelsea for a large fee after making just 10 outings for the London side. Waldo’s 1st Burnley appearance came as left back at Southampton in a 2-2 draw with Casper and Irvine getting the goals.

Next game up was the 4th Round League Cup game away at OPR, but Waldo had earlier played for Chelsea in their 2-1 defeat at the hands of Middlesbrough and was cup tied. His home debut came against Chelsea the day before Bonfire night and he featured this time as right back in a 1-1 draw, with a Chelsea own goal getting Burnley the point.

West Brom away 11th November 1967 and Waldo finally features for the first time with the number 5 shirt on his back and Burnley lose 8-1; yes 8-1! Bellamy was our lone goal scorer.

The Harry Potts Calling feature in the following home programme against Newcastle reported “Following our splendid run of eight games without experiencing a set back in the way of defeat, last Saturday’s result at The Hawthorns came like a bolt from the blue and brought us back to earth with a shattering bang” Such was life even then as a Burnley supporter and Colin Waldron must have wondered what he had let himself in for!

A below mid table league position beckoned and the end of the season was brightened by the success of our Youth Team in defeating Coventry in the Final of the FA Youth Cup; it was on the shoulders of many of these young players that Burnley’s future would be played out, both success and failure.

Waldron would go on to serve Burnley with distinction in a long career and as the swinging sixties drew to a close and the 70s beckoned; the closing decade was to draw a veil over a period of time, that would remain Burnley’s most successful period ever.

Next time: Getting a job and the team of the seventies!