Ronald Choularton was an apprentice compositor at Percy Brothers who started a few months after I did. Unlike me whose first visit to Percy’s was in my school uniform, Ron came dressed in a suit – I didn’t even have one! He even turned up for his first day at work in it which meant that he was christened ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’ the fictional character who was always dressed immaculately. The fact that he looked smartly dressed meant I decided to take a bit of a dislike to this ‘Flash Harry’ and it took a long time before I could actually call him a friend.
Ron lived with his parents in Lower Broughton above the hardware shop that his ‘mam’ ran and later on in his career I used to pick him up on my mod scooter and drive him the short distance to our place of work, sometimes I am ashamed to say, accompanied by a bottle of milk that we had picked up from a doorstep nearby.
It soon became apparent that Ron was quite intelligent and the occasional boredom of the job meant that he was constantly looking for ways to entertain the rest of us with various practical jokes and adventures. One of his favourite japes was to jump up and down on the balcony which surrounded the comp room so that a cloud of dust would descend on the immaculate ‘pre-print’ area which was manned by a very particular member of staff who was in his fifties who would set off running up the stairs to find the culprit by which time Ron would have run down the opposite set of stairs and appear busy at his frame as if nothing had happened. When he was old enough he bought an Austin A40 van which he then painted in yellow and red by hand which gave it the appearance of a kind of off-kilter Noddy in Toyland joke car (I do hope he doesn’t read this…).
After he came out of his time as an apprentice he went to work for The Manchester Evening News before becoming a ship’s printer. This was the dream of every young compositor and meant he set the menus and other printed material onboard cruise ships and he took in all the lands of the world and got paid for it! Eventually disembarked at San Diego, California, got married, toured all the states of America before having children and opening The Union Jack, a British newspaper for ex-pats.
He is now an actor and has appeared in many plays, among them Scrooge! He has also done television and film work. The last time I saw him was in Pizza Express in Prestwich, Manchester where he and his daughter were visiting his ‘mam’ in Swinton. He’s got older like all of us but has not lost any of his personality and charm – long may it continue!