Photo above : Neil pictured with his extended family in Newport 2015
Always more interested in the practical side of life , he admired his Aunt Lizzie who could cook “ as good as any of these Master Chefs on TV ”. Anxious to leave school , he worked in a local bakery and then went to work for his older brother Ron who had a chicken farm – but when Ron died in 1936 , the young Neil had to re-consider his future , which was why , in 1937 he joined the Navy as a cook . Between 1937 and 1939 , he served on HMS Victory 2 and then Iron Duke before applying for a compassionate discharge because by this time he had met and married the love of his life , Dorothy .
Blind date
They met on a blind date and the story goes that he hid in a doorway to see what she was like before committing himself . When he spotted the lovely petite redhead , he had no hesitation about taking her to the Grand Cinema – and says that after he ’ d escorted her back at the end of the evening to Whitecroft Hospital , where she worked as a nurse , he looked up at the stars and said “ That ’ s the girl I ’ m going to marry ”. And marry her he did – although his compassionate leave from the Navy didn ’ t last long , because he was called up again for war service , just before Paul was born . Most of his wartime service was in the Solent between Portsmouth and the Island , so he wasn ’ t too far from home , and his family continued to grow , with second child Dianne being born in 1941 and Marie in 1943 . It was in 1943 that Neil ’ s grandmother died , and left him £ 2,500 in her will – an enormous amount of money at that time . After the war , it was this money that he used to buy a bakery business in Upper St James Street from Edwin Caddy . He recalls
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