MANY thanks to Mrs E Mussenden (Letters, May 27) for her reminiscences about her father, Len Cooper, a shipping clerk for engineers Clayton Goodfellow Co Ltd. in Blackburn for many years.
Len was a member of Holy Trinity Church at Larkhill, one of may on the payroll at 'Goodies,' which was familiarly also known as Trinity Iron Works.
He dispatched goods all over the world and his reference book was a Woolworth's 6d notebook -- no postal codes in those days.
With a pencil behind his ear and a Woodbine in his mouth, he was a wonderful character, a product of Holy Trinity Dramatic Society.
Len Cooper and my father, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Joseph Atkinson were the last of the Old Comrades' Association of the 1st/4th East Lancs Regiment, based in the Brewers Arms, Bolton Road, Blackburn.
Year in, year out, they would walk proudly under the Old Comrades' banner to the Corporation Park war memorial on Armistice Day.
When Len retired from Goodies, in his farewell speech he thanked everybody for their comradeship ending with thanks for the 'galluses' and the 'gansie,' which in Lancashire dialect, are 'braces' and 'pullover.'
KEN ATKINSON (ex-Goodie's), Selous Road, Blackburn.
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