AS an "ex-pat" living in South Australia, I was interested to read an article on Peel Tower in the police force's "Down Under" magazine. It brought back happy memories.
As a boy, I assisted my father to train gun dogs on the nearby grouse moors. He was a police inspector at Haslingden. His pastime was rough shooting (hunting) and gun dogs, Irish setters and pointers.
About 1953, when I was a detective constable at Bury, I arrested a man while he was attending a dance at the Conservative Club in Ramsbottom. The newspaper headlines read something like: "Detective rugby-tackles escaping suspect".
In the 1960s the Baptist church at Ramsbottom engaged Trevor Bensch, a minister from South Australia. He took Australian cricketer Ian Chappell to his first Rotary meeting. Ian, who was 17 at the time, had signed to play cricket for Ramsbottom and, of course, went on to captain Australia.
Shortly after emigrating to South Australia in 1972 I met Trevor Bensch who told me this story. We have been good friends ever since.
GRAHAM DUERDEN
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