He used to set fluke nets on the river and on the west shore, down at Middleton. Then in summer he was salmon fishing. He used to go musseling in winter and at one time he used to send 'em across from Glasson Dock over to Whitby for bait for the lobster pots. He also went cockling and he always knew when the tide was going to turn and it was time to come home.

I was born into a world where we didn't have electric bills or gas bills. We had a coal fire and paraffin lamps and the toilet was a bucket in a building up at the top o' the garden.

We had a wash house where me mother did all the washing. She had a washing boiler for doing her washing but also, when me dad went out shrimping with the horse and cart he brought 'em home alive and boiled 'em at home in the washing boiler.

I didn't help to pick the shrimps 'cause I've only got one arm. That was all done at birth. I was 13lb in weight and I was breach so it was rather difficult getting us out. Apparently me granny resuscitated me.

There wasn't such thing as ante-natal clinics. I was born at home and, luckily for me, me grandmother was the village midwife. She was an absolutely brilliant woman: she was the midwife and if anybody died she went and laid 'em out. And when they were killing the pig she always had to catch the blood – she was deaf so she never heard it squealing – and she made loads and loads o' black puddings.

They wanted to take me left arm off but me dad said leave it on. Looking back I'm glad he said that. I mean I can't straighten it and it's dead, I've no feeling in it, but it balances me up.

When I was younger it embarrassed us; going to work at Lancaster, on a bus, I used to go in middle of a hot summer with a raincoat over me arm so people couldn't see it. And then one day I just thought 'Sod it, what does it matter!' So I don't bother about it now.

Before we were 11 we always wore clogs. I was going down the village on me bike one day and me clog slipped off and I crashed and was unconscious. It put me off riding a bike for a long while.

When we were lads we were in Scouts and in the wartime we used to go around with a donkey and cart collecting paper. They think that recycling's a new thing but we did it as lads. We had a Scout room up at the vicarage at Overton and we used to fill it wi' paper. Every so often a big wagon come and took it and paid money for the Scout funds.

On a Sunday, people off the quay in Lancaster used to come down to Overton in their boats and me dad used to come home and say: 'The townies have landed!' It sounded to us as though people from outer space had come.

And me and me brothers and sister used to go up to Lancaster by boat, shopping. We'd pull up on the slipway on the quay and then walk up to me grandmother's. She lived on the corner of Bulk Road, where there's a garage now. There was a back alley at the back of Smalley's, and then there was a rope works. Me dad used to get his nets and any rope or string that he wanted from there because he always made all his own salmon nets. He also made his own fishing baskets from cut willows.

One of the places that we used to go was Cragg's, the cloggers, on Nicholas Street, for irons to put on the bottom of the clogs. And we used to go to Fentons hardware up Market Street, and the Co-op on New Street; you could get virtually anything there.

We was always in the sea when we were young. With having only one hand and being near the water me mother decided I must learn to swim. She says 'Lay on your back, keep your mouth shut and keep your nose out of water' and she learnt us to float. Then when she got me floating she said: 'Just turn over and do the dog paddle.' So from thereon I was swimming.

When I was 16 we were swimming at the back of the weir at Overton one night and this young lad, halfway across he started shouting 'Help!' He was a bit of a joker and we thought at first he was joking. Anyway, I decided it was a bit more than larking about and I swam out to him. Looking back on it, it was a bit daft because with having only one hand, how could I hold him and swim? But anyway, I did it and he drowned. I've never forgotten that, it was really traumatic.

I went to the grammar school at Morecambe and when I was 16 got me first job at Middleton Tower holiday camp. A Japanese bloke had it then and it was absolutely busy.

I was on the gardens and that was the place where I learnt something very important for me: how to wheel a wheelbarrow wi' one arm! There was an old chap there and he said to me: 'Jim, gerra piece o' rope, tie it onto one handle, then t'other and put it over your head.' And do you know, that's come in handy all me life because I've had an allotment for 25 years on Fairfield. But that job only lasted about six weeks and me dad said: 'Don't worry Jim, you can go fishing wi' me,' so I did that. Then a chap called Robert Gardner moved to Sunderland Point. He was a Lancaster businessman: he had Anthony Bell's, he had the coal yard at Green Ayre, and the builders' yard on the quay. He was going to work one day, past me dad's house, and me dad stopped him and said: 'Do you have any jobs for my lad?' He said: 'Tell him to come and see me.'

So I went and he said: 'You're lucky, we want a lad at the coal yard.'
I started at the coal yard just before I was 17 and I was in the office there until it closed down. At first we had a wooden office wi' gaslights, in the yard at Green Ayre, and later we moved over to Parliament Street.

Before she was married me mother had lived at 34 Parliament St and we had our office at 36. It later became an Indian restaurant but it's shut down now. Smalley's is still there, you used to be able to go and buy a bike there for a fiver.

When Green Ayre closed down I went to the builders' merchants at Marsh Point. I was made redundant from there two years before I was due to retire. They wouldn't let us go on disability at the job centre. They said 'cause I'd worked all them years I wasn't disabled and I had to sign on. There was a job at the bowling green near Williamson Park and I worked there for two years till I was 65.

I've a daughter Mary from my first marriage who lives down in Devon. After my first marriage ended I was invited to go to the Railway Club one night and I met Sylvia who was widowed. We got married in 1979 and she's the best thing that ever happened to me.

I've always managed to do anything I needed to. My mother used to buy me elasticated slip-on shoes but they were always slipping off and buckled shoes were the same. So I thought 'Why not fasten your shoe laces with one hand?' I taught myself and now it's easy.

And I never thought I'd be able to drive. I thought cars were all gear sticks and I thought I can't do that and hold onto steering wheel with one arm. Till I saw an advert in the Guardian for a meeting of the disabled drivers. I went and a fellow came up to me and said 'Do you drive?' When I said no he said 'Why not?' He started letting me drive this automatic car and I passed me test. I've got an automatic car with a ball on the steering wheel and buttons on the floor for the indicators that you use with your left foot.

Me dad always used to tell us 'Whatever you do, do your best at it.' I've always found that if you want anything, and you want it enough, you'll do it. I've got a brilliant life."