Dad started in the Life Boys, and joined the Boys Life Brigade (as it then was) as soon as he was old enough.

 

The company had a band, and Dad took up the bugle - a decision that may well have saved his life, because at the age of 15 he contracted tuberculosis (TB), a respiratory disease for which there was then no cure.

 

There's no doubt that having strong lungs helped him through this serious illness - he was in Harold Wood sanatorium for 10 months - whereas many others, including Dad's brother Horace, succumbed.

 

Dad's involvement with the Boys' Brigade didn't end when he reached 18 - he became an officer, as you can see in this photo, which probably dates from 1946, after he came back from the War. It was through his involvement with the BB that he met my mother, who was in the Girls' Life Brigade at the same church, Seven Kings Baptist.