John Winchurch

  The Tour du Mont Blanc 2008 Mont Blanc     Chamonix Depending upon exactly which route variants you take, it involves a distance of some 170km (105 miles) and an accumulated height gain and loss of some 10,000 m (about 33,000 ft).   TMB - Showing some variants From a low point of 1007m the Tour climbs several times to over 2500m and it is this constant ascent and descent which provide both the challenge and the reward of the ten days or so it takes to complete. Elizabeth and I did the more conventional anticlockwise version, but instead of starting at Les Houches (as I have done four times previously), we waited for the pouring rain that greeted us on arrival at Geneva to subside and first spent a couple of enjoyable days in Chamonix. Being a very enthusiastic photographer, Elizabeth was very quickly capturing the scenery, grandeur and character of the Alps. It is with thanks to Elizabeth that I include the majority of photos in this account. Visit her blog pages on www.giftsof

I joined ATV in January 1971. At this time, Ros and our first daughter were still in Dublin, but I had found a buyer for the house, a colleague at the P&T looking to move from Cork to Dublin. The legal process of the sale moved very slowly and in the meantime I had viewed and decided, with Ros to buy a newly built house in Stourport - on - Severn, 23 miles west of Birmingham. Daughter number two was born in Stourport. The preparation and delivery could not have been more different from her older sister's birth the year before and I was present to see my second child enter the world and able to hold her minutes after she was born. Margaret with her first granddaughter, April 1971 54,Stagborough Way, Stourport, 1971 I drove over to fetch Ros and our daughter on the ferry in January 1971, but it was May before we moved into the Stourport house. In the intervening months we stayed with my parents and grandmother in Halesowen . Daughter number two in 1972 In 1973 I renewed my links

We moved to Dublin in December 1968, living for a while in a small rented flat near James Joyce's tower at Sandymount Strand. In the following spring, we made the important decision to buy a house. New homes were being built on the south side of the city and after viewing and organising a mortgage (surprisingly easily) we moved into 69 Clonkeen Estate ( later rename Meadowvale)  in the late spring of 1969. John outside 69 Clonkeen Estate (later Meadowvale) 1969 Several friends and relatives came over on the ferry that year to visit us.  We acquired a dog - a Pembrokeshire corgi called Ceri and I joined Bray Sailing Club, a few miles down the coast.  John  and crew sailing Enterprise 2556 'Ptarmigan', Bray harbour 1970 We had very little furniture or belongings, but gradually built up household necessities by purchase or in several cases making furniture from old packing cases and beach driftwood.  Our first daughter was born in 1970.  Ros had a difficult labour, not helped

  Cardiff University 1961 - 1964 I started my degree course for a B.Sc in electrical engineering in September 1961 at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (as it was known then - later it became simply Cardiff University) The family had left Tenby during the summer of 1961 and moved to Halesowen in the West Midlands. To the house that Percy had bought after Jeanne's death, which was where my grandmother, Marie had lived since 1950. David transferred to Halesowen Grammar School and I moved to Cardiff in September 1961 to 'digs' (shared bedroom and breakfast and dinner supplied for about £3 a week !) in Summerfield Avenue on the north side of the city centre. I can't say I was happy there, I missed Tenby and family life . I had also built quite a lot of audio equipment, such as amplifiers, loudspeakers etc which had been moved to Halesowen. My degree course was in Electrical Engineering, which involved a lot of work and was rather boring at times. I did

  The Tenby years 1954 - 1961 I first set foot in Pembrokeshire aged about seven or eight in 1950 or 1951, I cannot remember exactly which year it was, but I went with my Grandfather, Percy Winchurch. Percy, with a rather scared looking John Sutton Park. About 1948 Percy, who with h is brother Roland, had built up a very successful motor business, Winchurch Brothers Limited, in the West Midlands, was planning partial retirement to Saundersfoot. He had bought a small caravan ( a Berkeley Messenger ) which he proposed to site on a field belonging to Mrs Howells at Dun Cow Hill at Wisemans Bridge, grandmother of TTT member Sue Griffiths who is still a good friend – many decades later ! Margaret Winchurch standing by the Berkeley Messenger 1961 I travelled with him that summer to stay as Bed and Breakfast guests of Mr and Mrs Watts next to one of the entrances to Hean Castle Estate between Wisemans Bridge and Saundersfoot.. From that first visit I formed a childhood bond with South Pembrok

  The Move to Hagley In the summer of 1950, we left Handsworth and move to the much more rural location of Hagley in Worcestershire. My mother was particularly enthusiastic about this move and it proved to be a mainly happy and stable four years of our lives. In addition to the four of us we were now joined by Annie, my grandmother, who would be with us until her death in Tenby in 1958. Hagley primary school was a world away from Handsworth. It was a modern, low building, situated next to fields. The headmaster. Mr Owen was a Welsh speaking kindly man who had been active in the teaching branch of the trade union movement and was now moving towards retirement. Another notable teacher who encouraged me as I approached the eleven plus exam was Madge Mills, who was from Kidderminster and had previously worked in a school there with my great aunt, Nellie Downing. I very quickly made new friends in Hagley. Close by were Robert Hatcher and Richard Hince John, Robert and Richard in 1952 We wer