Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

Jack always called her, had come to Lancashire to take up a position in domestic service at Worsley, but she had been born and raised in strong Calvinistic Methodist territory at Penmaenmawr on the North Wales coast. Jack’s paternal grandfather had been an engineer for Horrockses, a well-known spinning business, and this side of the family was Anglican. It was nevertheless through church activities that John and Ruth had met, but after their marriage in 1930 it was Methodism that would remain a defining influence in their lives. A strong social conscience led John into local politics, where he remained active until a brain tumour brought about his death on the operating table in 1952, at the early age of 50. ‘He was an old-fashioned Labour councillor,’ Jack says. ‘He was on the District Council for about fifteen years and nobody ever put up against him. That says something about the man, doesn’t it?’ Soon after marriage, Jack’s parents decided to convert the front room of their home into a fish-and-chip shop, his mother giving up her work at the mill to run the business. There is a natural sociability with Jack that has shaped his adult life, and this same family trait was a feature of life in the fish-and-chip shop. Moreover, John’s position as a councillor meant that the Bond home was the first in the area to have a telephone. Soon the shop became akin to a phone booth: ‘If anybody came into the shop requesting to use this telephone, there was no way, as the local fish-and-chip shop, that we could ever say no. And, of course, when people had to leave a number because they were in hospital and things like that, they’d give our number.’ There was another feature of living at the back of the fish-and-chip shop that Jack will never forget: ‘We made the mistake of having a 8 ‘Don’t call him Little John’ Jack’s parents, John and Ruth, in 1948, when John was chairman of Worsley Urban District Council.