A NINETY-year-old great grandad has set down his life story as a permanent record for his family.

Stan Yates, who lives in Lower Darwen, took just six weeks to write his book The Potato Eater, titled after his favourite food.

Stan was born in Pleckgate in 1921, one of five children of textile workers Isabella and William Yates.

His dad worked in a weaving shed called the Split Shop in Kay Street. He had served in the Great War, and after being taken prisoner at the age of 17 in France, had been put to work in mines in Germany.

Isabella had a job in a winding mill called the Wooden Hut.

He says: “At one time we lived in Cannon Street, which had a stone sink and one gas ring and was a real slum, just like Dickens’ days. Half a crown moved us into a two up two down in York Street, which had a bigger fire range, with lino and sand on the floor to keep the bugs out.

“We had newspapers for a table cloth and shared toilet facilities with two other families.

“We used to pawn items at Ruby’s Field Lamp in Russell Street and cleaned our clogs with left-over banana skin. We were poor but manners were everything.”

The family would have toast with dripping for breakfast and cow heel pie for tea.

Stan went to Christ Church School and then C of E Central Secondary School, near the boulevard and remembers playing football up the Kitty Fields at Brandy House Brow, where his dad had allotments.

He also recalls Ala Cobham and his flying circus coming to oy’le pit near Guide in the thirties and playing in the warm water chute at Whitebirk power station.

He used to go to Bethany Mission in Brandy House Brow to watch magic lantern shows.

Christmas Day was a round of enjoying for free meals for the poor.

First, there was breakfast at King George’s Hall, then it was on to Brent Street mission, before walking over to the Ragged School in the afternoon for pea pie with a crust on top.

By the time Stan was 18 he had inherited his father’s love of the soil and became a gardener.

Then the war broke out. His dad had joined the Dorsets Regiment and Stan was recruited into the RAF Regiment and was stationed both at home and abroad.

Writing letters to his sister Renee, who was nursing in London, led him to his life partner, nurse Cath Sheridan, who had earlier been evacuated to Accrington from Manchester.

Deciding she was the girl for him before they even met, the couple were married on Empire Day, 1947, and lived in Dill Hall Lane, Clayton.

Stan worked in the cemetery opposite and Cath got a job at Philips.

They furnished their new home with pieces from Paramount Furnishing Warehouse in Bridge Street Accrington, then moved to a tied cottage at Portfield, when Stan became gardener at a house called Clerkhill near Sabden.

In the 1960s he spent five years, looking after 2,700 graves for the War Commission in France, before moving back to England, and working for the Water Board at Fishmoor for 28 years.

Stan and Cath had three children and today have three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.