Front Cover of The Gary Owens Story:


Back Cover of The Gary Owens Story

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Cronalogical Version:

I was born in Brinington, Stockport, September 15th 1961, son of Derik and Phyllis Owens they resided at 161 Lapwing Lane, it was a council estate house and the second home the couple had, the first was in Heaton Norris Stockport. I was younger brother to Dave the first child, we spent most of their time playing together, i have an early memory of running to a nearby bridge when steam trains were coming, it was a few hundred meters along the same street, we would stand on the bridge as the train thundered under it with soot, smoke and still burning embers billowing out and filling the air. I was about 4 years old, my brother Dave was 6.

There was constant arguing in the Owens household, our parents were always fighting, it was a constant battle, Dave and i left home for the first time when i was 4 years old, we made it as far as the bridge and realised we had no money to get the bus and so went home to ask mum and dad to lend us the bus fare, they said where you going and we said to Auntie Flos, we tried to leave to get away from the fighting that was going on.

One day i came into the kitchen i was about 6 and i saw my farther stuffing money into the kitchen cupboard that had a false wooden lining on the bottom, it was full of money. I found out years later that this was from a robbery my father had committed on a company called Peak Trailers where he worked as a welder. He did this robbery with a local friend called Brian Dignan who was also working there, they did it in their lunch hour, breaking into the company safe and taking the payroll.

Brian Dignan was a regular visitor at the house and our parents and they would go out clubbing with him. Before they were married, Brian was briefly engaged to my mum Phyllis, Derik and Brian were in the Army together and did national service together, one time while on leave Derik visited Phyllis who at the time lived on Bexel Road, Adswood Stockport. He told her that Brian said it was OK to take her out, Brian had not said this, and in fact this was a ploy to steel Brian’s fiancée, it ultimately worked as Brian had been caught out with another woman earlier.

Great Granma Tailor Dads Side:                                                                                             Granma Florence Axon Mums Side:
   

I remember Granma Axon as we used to go round their regular, Bexel Road, Adswood Stockport. I used to play in there garden where they had an air raid shelter. At this house when my mum was a young girl when digging in the garden, she found some Roman artefacts, two bracelets and some coins, they were gold, she said they found them when they were putting in fence posts, the whole place use to be fields, then a golf course then a housing estate, it got bombed in the war. We stayed there once for a week when mum and dad fell out.

Derik & Phyllis Owens 1959


The family would holiday in North Wales most years around Colwyn Bay, Conway, Anglesey and Dolgellau. Deriks brother Brian worked as a manager at the Welsh forestry commission i have a fond memory of going up in to the forest in Dolgellau where we were shown gold in the streams and my uncle Brian said, if you put your toe in the water you will run a bloody mile, it was that cold! We would find rocks in the streams and break them all open and they had gold inside, it was a rich gold area, this was exciting to a young lad.

Derik had another brother called Terrance and a Sister called Mary, not much time was ever spent as a family with any of these people.

This was the last picture taken of mum and dad together, both in their 70s.



Derik Age 18                                                                                       Derik Age 70 At His Home                                                               Derik Age 72 In Care
       

Deriks farther also called Joseph Derik died age 82, his mother called Mary had died some time earlier. Phyllis family consisted of Sister Florence Axon (Auntie Flo) married to Jack Burton and never had children Jack died in the 1990s, Ethel Axon (Auntie Ethel) married to Harry Mosley had a daughter named Julie, they got divorced and Ethel lived alone never re-marrying, and Raymond Axon (uncle Ray) who married a lady called Jackie (Auntie Jackie), they had two daughters Debbie and Kerry Axon, i used to go along to their gymnastic training they were great at it and are still involved in teaching it now, Uncle Ray died Monday 10th September 2012. Phyllis family also never spent much time together as a family. My mum Phyllis sadly died of cancer 2015.

Most weekends Dave and i would be packed off to Auntie Flos and Uncle Jacks when we lived in Brinington, this is because our parents would go out clubbing and end up fighting, this was how the family dealt with not letting the kids see what went on, on many occasions the police would be called, and as it occasionally became very violent, memories include Phyllis being hit with a bottle and going to hospital for stitches, and Derik being stabbed with a knife.

Derik was a lost soul and he would break into peoples houses or property drunk and just go to sleep there and have no recollection of why or what he had done. If it was not for Auntie Flo and Uncle Jack Dave and i would of been in the middle of what everyone on the outside saw as a constant war, screaming insults at each other and physically fighting.

There were good times too, but they never seem to be when the family were together, i recall on holiday in Wales in Colwyn Bay there was a huge fire and the whole mountain at the back of their caravan was on fire, i was age about 12, i spent the whole day with the fire fighters with a square rubber beater on a pole on the mountain stopping the fire from spreading to nearby homes, on another occasion i talked a trawler boat captain in Conway into allowing me to go out on the boat fishing, at an early age i was very independent. The family bought a caravan on Silver Bay when i was 12. i spent all day out on my own exploring the coast and fishing, it was wild in those days with crashed ships on the coast and no one for miles, some days i would be out all day and see no one, the beach at Silver Bay holds great memories for me.

An early memory for me is Stockport air disaster i was five at the time, i remember hearing the plane coming towards our house we all rushed to the windows and it knocked the chimney of the house roof opposite, we got in the car and rushed to the crash site, when i got there the emergency services we just arriving i stood at these railings and watched we could hear a baby crying that they brought out alive, it had fallen through the plane floor as it impacted and miraculously lived, people in the factory the nose crashed into were trying to get people out:

   

Phyllis and Derik Had four children Dave, Gary, Christopher and Lisa. Chris came along four years after me this seemed to calm things down at home, and we moved to a new home on Wellfield Road in Offerton, Stockport. We started to have a lot of money at this point, my dad was doing well with work and getting large hotel refurbishing contracts, doing shop fitting. I remember one job that stood out it was called the Landsdown Hotel in Manchester, my dad had the contract for the refurb and supposedly had 4 guys working for him on the job and getting paid for 5 of them, in fact he had just himself and worked night and day pocketing all the money which was substantial for that time. Frank Sinatra was offered one million pounds to open the hotel singing just three tracks, dont know if he ever did.

I went to Offerton Hall Primary school where memories include having a fight with a girl called Ann who fell over in the fight and knocked out her front teeth and going to my first disco where a guy called Mark Ogden beat me up in the toilets, i later went to Stockport lads club and did boxing, Mark Ogden was there and i give him a good beating as i now could fight, i got kicked out of Stockport lads club for it. I later met Mark, i was a Quality Control Manager at John Myers Catalogue, Mark was on the conveyor belt, we laughed about it, he was massive double my size just as well he laughed it off! I only had this job a few months while waiting to get the band a record deal. I also was looking at supermarket management as my brother Dave was doing well in it and did a short stint in a shop in Cheadle Hulme, but i did not like it and had other options.

Dave went to Dailstone lane School where amongst his many achievements he wired the live wire to the neutral wire in the science labs blowing up all the school electrics. When he left school he worked at a supermarket as an assistant manager, he was picked for fast promotion and was training to be a regional manager when we got our record deal.

While Offerton Hall School we moved to Bramhall and i attended Neville Road Primary School, moving from there to Bramhall High.

   

I used to play on this plane at Bramhall high school in breaks it looked a lot newer then we had all the fields to wander which were huge. I played a lot of tennis on those courts once spending all summer doing it I got real good at it.

Dad built up his business eventually getting sign painted vehicles and workshops we then moved to a top area called Bramhall, we had a large detached house with a small orchard and a St Bernard Dog that i would ride called Major he was a huge dog. We would climb in the fruit trees, and play in the garden a lot it was about half an acre at the back, and opposite then was Jacksons Brickworks, it was huge and had lakes on it, we would go out all day building rafts and playing in the brickworks.

I would walk to Bramhall High every morning and walk back home, it was quite a walk. One day some workmen dug a trench right in front of our drive, there was a lot of hassle about it as we could not get in or out of the drive. Dads business was getting trouble at this time, someone was bugging his phone and stealing his jobs, we got Roy Pearson to bring in the police tech guy, and he found a telephone bug and what they were doing was, every job my dad got a quote for they would ring up and offer a cheaper price pricing my dad out of business. After they investigated it it turned out to be a company called Marshalls Builders who were all Masons.


   

We had a Daimler Sovereign XJ12 Jaguar car along with a Jaguar Mark 2 Sports Car and an Aston Martin DB5 Legonda Sports car that i used to go to school in.
       

It ended up with our business going bust and we moved to Colwyn road Bramhall, just round the corner from the school, the house was a wreck when we moved in, dad soon sorted it out.
   

Mum At Colwyn Road                                                                                                                     Barney The African Grey Parot In The Lounge
   

   
Grandad Sam Axon, Chis and Me                                                                                                 Dave, Chris and Me at Silver Bay, Holy Island

This picture of the rockery and pond I built it, I spent all summer doing it one year, it had waterfalls starting in the top right corner, came down two small pools with falls on each and then into a main pool like a figure 8 with a bridge across the middle, I was real chuffed with it at the time. The shed on the right I striped down my 750 Suzuki bike in to nothing and re built it after I blew the pistons.

Lisa went to Bramhall High School also, the thing i remember most about my sister was her standing all over my bird egg collection that was all in separate draws each e.g. carefully stored, i collected many over the years and she had opened the drawer to sand on it to get up to a shelf and broke them all not even realising how important they were to me!