Edwin Gillyon, known as Eddie in childhood and Ted in adulthood, 20 October 1925 - 6 March 1985

Things he used to say about his childhood. They were poor, sometimes he had to go to school in bare feet to qualify for free clogs. Also their mum used to cut the toes out of shoes when the shoes got too small. They didn’t have a bathroom, they had a big metal bath that they used to put in front of the coal fire. As a boy of 8 he saw a ship sink in the Humber. Dad could remember when Grandma took them both to dance class for the first time. The teacher said to uncle Al “Right lad, lets see what you can do”
	Al, Al, Eddie & Lily 1940
So he did and the teacher was very impressed. Al went on to be a professional entertainer. When dad showed the teacher what he could do the teacher said “I think you’d best go back to playing rugby son.” He started work at 14 and had a variety of jobs. He worked in a pickle factory and during breaks him and his mates used to play. One day they were running along the tops of some barrels of pickle onions and one didn’t have a lid, he fell in and stank for the rest of the day! Around this time he wired up the house for his mum so that if someone entered the house during the night an alarm would sound. During air raids he had to hide under that stairs, the strongest part of the house. At 16 he was working in a paint factory, in those days they used to put lead in the paint, this caused my dads pyria and he had to have all his teeth removed so he had false teeth from the age of 16. He was a good runner and enjoyed rugby for which he won two small trophies. One day he managed to catch a run away horse for which he got a right rollicking off his mum because it was a very dangerous thing to do, he could have been killed. John Alderton, the actor, lived in Gipsyville and his dad had a chippy. Dad knew them.

During the War

When he was 17 WW2 was in full swing and he joined Hull Civil Defence. Shortly after he joined up and was trained to be a paratrooper but was injured just before a major operation during which many of our men died. He retrained as a signal man (14819030) and was in the combined services in the Far East (Static Wireless Troop) serving in Malaya and Burma as those countries were then called. Our men serving in the Far East were known Wingate’s Warriors. I believe it was during this time of his life that he converted to Catholicism. He told us the story of how just a few men caught a whole batch of Japanese soldiers during the night. They had noticed the Japanese approaching. Enlisting the help of the villagers carrying sticks and farm implements they lined up on the road ahead of the approaching Japanese. Remember it would have been very dark. The plan was to ‘accidentally-on-purpose’ switch a lantern on. One of the English soldiers would shout “Put that light out!”. The Japanese would see an outline for a split second of lots people carrying what look like rifles and they would surrender. Anyway it worked! The memory made dad chuckle.

	3 Platoon 3 coy 5 ITC Gallowgate Richmond Yorks “Sgt Parker and his merry lads” Front row in the middle. Sep-Nov 1944		“Yes, I even play badminton, your loving son” Dad and Vic, Kuala Lipis, Malaya, Sept 1946
“To my brother Albert, from Eddie” 1944		1944

After the war

Dad worked at Blacksburns Aircraft in Brough (later to become British Aerospace). He also became a trawler man and spent a lot of time in the Arctic circle, made friends with Eskimos. He told us how he gave an Eskimo child a sweet with a wrapper, the child not having seen a sweet before initially put it in their mouth with the wrapper still on. They often saw the aurora borealis while in the Arctic Circle, (it was dad who encouraged my interest in Astronomy as a child). On one occasion they saw some Russian military craft and dad being the skipper had to go to London to report on what he had seen. It was while working on a trawler that he lost his bottom set of false teeth overboard and never bothered replacing them. His career as an arctic fisherman came to an end when he slipped on a wet deck and injured his back. He was thankful he had completed his fitter and turner apprenticeship earlier because he could go back to this.

My dad

Mum & dad 3^rd April 1961 with (l to r) Kathleen, Al and Teresa		Mum and dad met at Anchor House in the late 1950’s and married on 3^rd April 1961 at Sacred Heart church. Dad was Senior Workshop Technician in the Plant Biology department at Hull University for 21 years. Due to the back injuries earlier in his life he had to wear a surgical corset and had several operations to take good bone from his hip and put it in his neck to seal up the joints. This meant he had limited movement in his neck later in life. My memories of dad are of someone who did lots and lots of charity work for the old, the poor and the disabled under the banner of the SVP (Society of St Vincent De Paul). He used to visit a lot of old people to keep them company for
an hour or so, one of them was a Titanic survivor! He was Diocesan President for much of the 70’s. One of his greatest achievements was the ‘talking catholic newspaper’. I remember dad going to the annual national SVP meeting in London to request the money needed for the equipment and to convert the top floor of St Anthony’s Parish Centre on Beverley Road into a recording studio. His initial plan was for a small circulation, just Yorkshire. But within a couple of months of the first issue
Senior Workshop Technician, Plant Biology, Hull University	cassettes were not only going all over the UK but also to Peru, South Africa, Australia. All these cassettes came back to our house each month, two big grey sacks full. Another project was making a chalet at Golden Sands holiday village ‘Disabled Friendly’ well before the days where it was a legal requirement. We all mucked with the building work on these projects, it was great fun. Dad was a kind gentle man with strong principles. He would never knowingly hurt someone’s feelings. He had an interest in local history and kept a book detailing his research. He once wrote a children’s story about an animal that was a cross between a kangaroo and something else, none of the other animals liked it because it was ugly, but after it rescued some friends from a burning building by being able to jump across the ravine everyone liked him.
After his mother died around 1977 dad fell out with his brother Al for several years due to Uncle Al’s problems with alcoholism. When they made up Uncle Al had dried out and was living in a bungalow with a very nice lady friend. We went to visit him, I was about 18-19. Uncle Al got a photo out and showed it to dad. It showed Uncle Al and dad as young boys with another little boy stood in front of dad. “Who’s that?” asked dad. Uncle Al was taken aback. “Don’t you remember little Ronny, our baby brother? He died shortly after that picture was taken” Ronnie had obviously never been mentioned again. Al gave Ted the photo and it stayed on the mantle piece I think until dad died. Dad died on 6^th March 1985 after a short battle against stomach cancer and was interred in Chanterlands Avenue Cemetery, plot 71-505. Six weeks later the SVP dedicated a bench to him because
of all the good work he had done. The bench was placed in the grounds of the convent on Beverley Road. The convent became a hospice and the hospice (with the bench) has moved to Chamberlain Road.			Dad in the middle

Catholic Cassette studio in the background

	“Title: the jackpot. Approx 1250 stone of fish for a 2 hour tow. Spitzbergen Sept ’54 0130 hrs (cloudy and dull). R/Optr E. Gillyon /769 S/T Lord Mount Evans c/o Hull Depot MIMC Co Ltd. Camera; Kodak
folding brownie. Film Kodak verichrome, exp time 4 seconds. Negative developed by myself but commercially printed”			Repairs to Hull University field station at Spurn Aug 1966		Ted with Sarah & Teresa, Majorca, April 1972
		Front row left, with his dog, 1947?		Unknown date & event
Retirement from Hull University after 21 years, 1983
Teresa Graham 2005

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