
"Sixty two years ago I attended my friend Tony Walker's ninth birthday party at his house. The Walkers were one of four Catholic families that lived on the newly-built Windybank Estate in Hightown, Liversedge and being in a minority, naturally we all grew up and socialised together as one extended family.
Being the eldest of seven children we didn't have too much money and whenever birthdays came around, presents given would often be second-hand gifts and tokens of love made, manufactured or obtained from a household source. In contravention of strict council house rules, my father still kept chickens at the far end of the back garden and because fresh eggs were still being rationed after the end of the Second World War, my present to Tony were half a dozen eggs, which were greatly appreciated. In those times, outside the homes of the aristicracy, the body of the egg was eaten by the man of the house and if they were lucky and the mother didn't eat the remainder, the children would fight it out as to which one would eat the egg top.
Following a recent school reunion that my sister Mary attended, she met Tony Walker and after a long chat they exchanged addresses and she gave him my contact details. Almost sixty years have passed since I last saw Tony, until yesterday when he and his wife came to visit me and Sheila at our house in Haworth. After a few minutes and the exchange of some familiar school tales etc, it was as though the six decades had evaporated into the Haworth Moor mist and that we had lived as next door neighbours all our lives since childhood.
Tony brought two presents with him, a bunch of flowers for my wife Sheila and half a dozen fresh farm eggs for me from his own chickens that he keeps. We shall most certainly keep in touch now that we are reunited. Besides, he's the one with the fresh eggs now and there's nothing better that I love than a freshly-boiled egg. Fond memories are simply as priceless as fresh eggs were in 1951." William Forde: October 11th, 2014.