My grandad, Bob English, was what I suppose you'd call the "main man" in my life while I was growing up. My own dad, Ron English, died when I was just six and Grandad became the male role model to me, my brother and my sister. Grandad and Grandma lived in the house right beside ours right throughout our childhood and I remember many, many, many happy hours spent at my "other home" next door.

Bob was born in Scotland in 1913. He was born on a farm called 'Balterson', near Newton-Stewart in Wigtownshire where his father William was employed as an agricultural labourer. Bob was the sixth child of a family that was eventually to grow to 11 children.