SEQUENCE dancer, pigeon fancier and mechanic Colin Banyard, from Stanhill, is approaching his 90th birthday.

After reading the stories of J and S Leaver in Bygones in recent weeks, he has told his own tale of working at the Blackburn garage at the beginning of the Second World War.

In those days, the main Vauxhall cars on the road, were the DX and J-Type, which didn’t include such luxuries as wing mirrors or heaters.

Colin was15 when he got a job in the workshop, based in Quarry Street, managed by Harry Crompton – he’d already worked for 12 months at the Co-op Laundry after leaving school aged 14.

He was put to work in the war department, which carried out repairs and contracts for an array of service vehicles and equipment, such as searchlights.

Employed in war work, it meant that he was never called up to fight, though he did his national service from 1946 to 1948, when he learned a whole lot more about vehicle and tank mechanics. Afterwards, he returned to Leavers but a lot of mechanics were leaving, because of poor wages.

“Our weekly wage was £6 a week, only 2s 11d an hour and we had to fight for every penny. I think I earned 3s 1d an hour as I had a lot more skills, but in 1951 I decided to move to the ROF factory as a setter, where I stayed for 30 years.”

He remembers Dick, Norman and Arthur Leaver, who owned the business – and recalls helping out on Dick’s farm in Newton and acting as a chauffeur.

Among the workers at the garage during his time there were Jimmy Wolstenholme, who lived in Quarry Street, Fred Chadwick, blacksmith Billy Harrison, his striker Jack Devine, Harry Midgeley and his manager Charlie Ibbotson.

During his spare time Colin raced pigeons – he had caught the bug from his father, who had a four-acre small holding in Stanhill, where he also kept Rhode Island Reds and sheep.

Colin raced his 30 birds all over the country and the continent, winning armfuls of cups and even flew his birds against the Queen’s, who has a loft at Sandringham.

In 1981 he began training and transporting pigeons for other owners, loading up his Vauxhall Bravo pick-up with 40 baskets of birds and travelling across country.

Another love throughout his life has been sequence dancing, which he took up at the age of 14 and is still enjoying. He and his wife Edna held classes at the Poplar Club and Methodist Chapel and used to organise dancing weekends.