A LOT has been written about those left behind when husbands and sons went off to fight and die in the Great War. But very little has been written about the children who were left.

It must have been doubly hard for many of them. Not only had they lost a father or an older brother, but they were often left with a home life of full of despair, sadness and abject poverty.

Often they had the added responsibility of keeping an eye on younger brothers and sisters while trying to earn a few shillings as half-timers in the mills.

Education? Perhaps a few hours between running four loom, doing errands and scavenging.

One of those youngsters has left behind memories of childhood poverty which stood him in good stead for the demands of adult life.

Darwener Tom Harwood, "T.J." to friends and family in his later years, was blessed with an easy charm, confidence in abundance and a determination to make the best of whatever life threw at him.

It threw plenty.

He was only about six years old when his father, John Albert Harwood, went off to war with the East Lancashire Regiment, but recalls him working as a strong man in the public halls.

He returned with his left knee shattered and his femur and tibia fastened together with two long carpenter's nails, hammered home criss-cross through the bones.

Not long before his death, Tom recalled his early years in conversations with his son Michael: "We lived in Pitt Street. There wasn’t even a radio in those days, so you had to make your own entertainment.

“We used to have brick fights against the Corporation Street kids. There was a big area of rough ground at the bottom of the street. We dug holes to look like trenches and threw stones at each other.

"We used to play ‘thrippit’– hitting a wooden peg with a stick – cricket and football, but God help you if you broke a window. The owner would give you a right pasting.

"Johnny Haydock’s pop bottle works was close by and we'd scrabble around in the tip for the glass stoppers which we used for playing marbles.

"We also used to take the mickey out of our neighbours by playing ‘nick-nack’ – tying a linen thread from a bobbin to a door knocker and ‘knocking’ while hiding round the corner —and we would stuff newspaper up a drainpipe and then set it on fire. The roar it made as flame rushed up the pipe was amazing.

He recollected, too: "May Day meant a maypole – and a collection. We would get a couple of hoops from a butter tub and decorate them up with paper and have a maypole.

“The gang would then dance round singing and I did the collecting. The dancers would get half and I would get half. I suppose that was the start of my business acumen."

Pets? The only pet that Tom, his younger brother Joe and kid sisters Maggie and Mabel ever had was a cricket that used to live up the chimney.

When John Albert finally came home from the war the government set him up as a cobbler. But it was hard and money was tight.

Said Tom: "If, at tea-time, you put more than a level spoon of sugar in your tea, my father would lean over the table and give us such a bloody belt."

Tom recalled vividly the outside toilet, just a deep hole with a wooden seat that was emptied from time to time. Boys' camp was a luxury although they had to wash in a nearby stream.

Any poor children's treat – he was on it!

John Albert and his wife Bertha couldn't afford carpets or lino and had to make do with a pennyworth of sand sprinkled on the stone floors.

Scores of folk would scavenge for bits of coal over the Hoddlesden Moor, little Tommy among them. Christmas presents were perhaps an apple or an orange.

It wasn't long before the nails in his father's leg began to rust and eventually he suffered from kidney fits and ended his days in a military hospital in Rusholme.

Tom was 13 when he went down to the post office to pick up a telegram informing the family of his death.

Tom's hair fell out with the strain of it all and he was 21 before it grew back.

He was still running four looms at Olive Lane Mill but then he started selling door to door all over the country — silk stockings at first and then anything and everything.

His charm and confidence paid off and eventually, after a few hilarious years in engineering, he started making fancy goods and trinkets out of plastic.

It was the start of very successful business ventures which led to a big house at the top of Hawkshaw Avenue in Darwen, the presidency of Darwen Golf Club, world travel, and wealth which would have been beyond his wildest dreams as a child.

The rags-to-riches line could have been coined for Tom Harwood. But he worked for every penny. He was 95 when he died a few years ago.

He was my uncle – and I thought the world of him. 

Harold Heys