EDDIE Burrows was paid 12s 6d a week as an errand boy after leaving school at 14 – and deserved every penny.

His job was to deliver medicines for customers of Mr Ambrose, who ran a chemists in High Street, Oxford, in a row of shops near The Queen’s College.

But the bike he was given was so big that he couldn’t reach the pedals, so he had to walk everywhere.

He tells me: “I remember walking one day to Horspath.

“Another day, Mr Ambrose wanted a ladder delivered to Hinksey Hill. I strapped it to the bike and walked it all the way.

“I worked from 8am to 7pm and had to go out even when it was belting with rain.”

Mr Burrows lived with his parents, Fred and Lilian, in Norfolk Street, St Ebbe’s, opposite the Norfolk Arms pub, which was run by his grandparents, Bob and Emma Collett.

However, he was lucky to survive as a child.

“I’m told I weighed just 1lb when I was born at the Radcliffe Infirmary and I lived only because I was given brandy in a fountain pen.”

He has fond memories of his early life in the Friars.

“We built go-karts out of old prams and raced them around the streets.

“We collected jam jars from local streams and took them to Warburton’s scrapyard – we were paid a penny for a small one and two pence for a large one.

“Warburton’s also paid us sixpence for a rabbit skin.

“We would also go to the gasworks and collect ’breezes’ – like cinders – which we would put on our fire. They were a shilling a bag.”

One strict rule for the Friars’ boys was to keep away from the neighbouring St Thomas’s – there was often bitter rivalry between the two communities.

Mr Burrows went to St Ebbe’s Primary School, Holy Trinity School then St Aldate’s School before his two-year stint as an errand boy.

He left the chemists at 16 to work at Osberton Radiators in Woodstock Road, and returned there briefly after war service with the Warwickshires and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

After leaving Radiators, he worked for W Lucy and Co, the Oxford engineering company, in Walton Well Road, for 37 years until he retired.

Life has now turned full circle for him. Twelve years ago, a chance meeting in the Co-op at Wood Farm brought him in contact with one of his classmates at Holy Trinity School.

It was the first time he had seen Lily Hall (now Lilian Alcon) in 63 years.

Now both in their late eighties, they are living happily together in Chillingworth Crescent, Wood Farm.