Fred Shepherd moved, with his wife Ada from Clun Road to Firshill Croft in 1972. Fred always spoke his mind. Once, when a shop manager told an impatient queue that the assistant only had one pair of hands,
Fred replied:
“Aye and I’ve only got one pair o’ legs and they’re gerrin’ older while I’m stood here!”
We also remember Fred in hospital sat up in bed with his flat cap on.
“It’s bloody drafty to my bald ’ead from that window,” he explained.
Fred lost his wife in the 1980s but his niece, Rene, used to visit. Once, when Fred tried to take flowers for his wife’s grave, he found the cemetery gate locked and is remembered climbing a wall near the site of the old De La Salle college.
Fred went into Longley Home at age 93 and passed away in his sleep at age 98 in April 2004. But we will always remember him!
by Joyce Rason of Firshill and Pitsmoor Local History Group