My Name is Vic Cliffe. I was born in Manchester in 1944 and lived in Ardwick and Gorton, attending Ross Place and Ardwick Technical School. At 17(1962) I joined the Royal Navy and served until 1971 when I joined North Wales Police (called Gwynedd Constabulary then).

I retired in October 2001 after 30 years and now lecture on Drink Driving offences and carry out Mental Health reviews as a Lay Manager. I currently reside in North Wales.

I had been a sickly child born just as the war was ending and so small my mother was told I had little chance of survival. I understand in my early days I was wrapped in cotton wool in a size 6 shoebox in an open draw next to the fire in the black lead grate.

I was always ill but I survived so well that my mother was always to call me Felix after Felix the cat who survived everything thrown at him in the cartoons. Until the age of six whenever I was ill I slept between my parents in the front bedroom of Rose View in Ardwick, Manchester.

One occasion I can remember was of once again sleeping at the end of the bed and waking between my sleeping parents and, as I lay listening to the
various church clocks' bells ringing the hours, I could hear the traffic on Grey Street which passed the bottom of our road linking Stockport Road and Hyde Road.

It was not a busy road in today's sense but there was a steady stream of horse-drawn carts and the occasional car and lorry. The vinegar works at the corner of Grey Street and Stockport Road was nearby and the smell of the fermenting vinegar wafted over the area.

I lay for hours on the bed looking out of the window. Because of my illness a fire had been lit in the grate and the embers had warmed the room. The outside of the window was still iced over however, but I could see the horses with their hooves slipping on the icy cobbles, and cars travelling slowly in the gloom on Grey Street and the occasional worker going off to work.

The policeman on his beat made his way along Grey Street towards Hyde Road. His cape was pulled up almost covering his face. There was little traffic and all the houses were in darkness. I had no idea of the time until the downstairs clock chimed the quarter hour.

The gas lights barely lit the streets and the fog swirled around as the traffic moved slowly along. At the end of our street there was an alleyway behind the Sea Cadets' Hall, which led from Gomm Street. A man appeared out of the alleyway carrying a long thin pole, which he proceeded to rattle against our neighbours' window.

As he came to our house he looked up and saw my face in the window. He appeared startled but then waved and the top of his pole rattled the window, awakening my father. The man below was the 'knocker-up'. We children knew he came but who he was I did not know. He disappeared into the fog, the mist swirling after him.

Lights began to come on in the houses and the area awoke. The miners were the first to appear, their clogs slipping and banging on the cobble stones as they went off to work in the pit on Ashton Old Road.

My father went downstairs and soon returned with some porridge for me. I was feeling better. He left a cup of tea for my mother and she got from the bed to go to work as a cleaner. My elder sister Iris came for me and dressed and cleaned me.

I could hear the hooters from the engineering works warning the workers of the time, and people began scurrying past the house. I could see later where Lowry got his inspiration from. My parents left for work: my father as a motor fitter with a firm of undertakers on Stockport Road.

My sister took me off to school at Ross Place. It was always foggy and we rarely saw the sun at all during winter, and when the fog was really bad it invaded the school, making the classrooms cold and damp until the boiler heated the frozen pipes, which clanged with the steam, and then the fog disappeared.

At the age of nine in foggy Manchester I was already aware that it was wrong to play football in the street. It was November 1953 and together with a few friends I was playing football in Rose View, Ardwick under the one street gas light. As usual the weather was dark and fog swirled around and the traffic on nearby Grey Street passed slowly in the gloom.

The smell of the vinegar works wafted occasionally over us, and the smell of hops to this day brings back happy memories of my youth.

We lived in Rose View until 1954 and then moved to Gorton which, although only three miles away, was so different with its modern houses, inside toilets, and gardens. It was a lot more healthier for me.

We had not been long in the dark street when around the corner came my Uncle Dennis Brown who was lodging in our house. As he turned the corner the ball went in his direction and he picked it up. We were off in a flash although no doubt he recognised us.

I stayed out late that night expecting a telling off, which I duly got. The ball had been punctured, the remains of which I could see on the side of the black lead grate. I thought no more of it and Dennis soon moved out to start his own family.

He had completed 7 years in the Royal Navy prior to the Police, and was to be a role model for me in future life. At the age of 26 years, having just completed 9 years in the Royal Navy, I had applied to join North Wales Police (Gwynedd Constabulary).

I went for the interviews at Colwyn Bay Police station and having passed the exams with no problem I found myself sitting in front of the Chief Constable Mr Myers. He asked about my history and had I ever been in trouble with the police in Manchester?

'No' was my reply 'well you had better look at this then' he said and handed me a Manchester Police 'Caution' card; and there it was, November 1953 playing football in the street. I had a criminal record.

I was astounded but then I looked on the bottom of the form and saw the name PC Dennis Brown. I hurriedly explained what had occurred all those years ago and was accepted. Dennis was still a serving PC then and my mother phoned him up and gave her little brother a good telling off.

I recently met up with old friends who would have been with me on that November night, but as far as they know I must have been the only one Dennis booked.

Vic Cliffe, North Wales, 2002. See also Vic's memory under Gosport, Hampshire.