Neville Day 1

Neville John William Day 7 March 1922 - 26 November 1990

	Preface		Dad and the Cranes
	Neville Day The early years		Dad and his duty to the Crown. Including the one on the can!
	Dad's Dad's Army		Dad’s driving lessons (and some)
	Help from Neville’s Father John Day		Dad and the Mercedes G Wagon
	The Day I met Day		Dad, four tonnes of concrete and the gravel tsunami
	Dad and the Coronation		Norfolk is flat (not!)
	Neville Day’s admirable tutoring		No pheasant in here Charles
	Dad promotes me to Chauffeur		You can drive when you're eighty!
	Dad and THE holiday		Dad and the North Sea Gas pipeline
	Dad’s pigs and the Onion Dance		Dad's Butt pricking
	Dad and me and the Farm Fire		Dad’s idyllic office and the end of Neville Day Plant Hire Ltd
	Fluffy dog meets Steam Engine (fluffy no more)		Dad’s little known speech impediment
	Helping Dad with the pruning and tree felling		Dad and the not a Volkswagen
	Neville Day The early years and the final hour		Dad’s wheelies
	Dad and Fairstead		Dad would have laughed!

Preface

Before you start please allow me to make one thing quite clear, this tribute is not about me. As with so many biographies the author often seems to grab so much of the lime light. I apologise in advance therefore if unavoidably I get caught up in any account. I just happened to be there. OK?

Any person reading this, my tribute to a man, although not tall at 5’ 8”, yet far greater in stature than most, nay all I ever met, and who can add to my historical account, then I would be extremely grateful. As too also I'm sure will be the sadly dwindling number of those still alive today who knew him, thereby gaining so much.

And so to begin.

Neville John William Day was born in Town Street, Upwell, Cambridgeshire on 7 March 1922. Son and only child of Seed Potato Merchant John William Day (25 December 1898 - 5 December 1986) and Ivy Lily née Racey (26 April 1892 - 22 June 1972). Born into an upright, hardworking, kind and deservedly well respected family.

Click photo to read more about this fine Georgian town.

Little is known of young Neville’s life, simply because no one recorded it, no diaries have come to light, nothing other known except that he gained a scholarship to nearby Wisbech Grammar School. No mean achievement. However things seemed to go down a little from that point and Neville parted the auspicious portals of Wisbech Grammar with no qualifications of any great merit other than what was then known as a School Certificate, predecessor to basic GCE 'O' level qulification. Probably a disappointment to his wider family members who held some sway in the small but fine and prosperous Fenland Georgian market town of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. What Neville had gained though was a very capable grasp of mathematics, and even more importantly, an exceptional empathy for all others. Including even those with wings or on four legs! He also taught me, as my adoptive Father, of everything of any real value that I needed to know, and for which I will forever be grateful.

Neville Day's empathy for others, wit, intelligence and above all his unfailing integrity, becoming the man known and so highly regarded by so many in the eastern counties of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. All who were fortunate enough to meet and know him, and there were many, still speak highly of Neville to this very day. This can never be adequately described in these too few anecdotal stories. But here goes.

Dad wore a flat cap. Of the type worn by yokels, thoroughbred horse traders, Jockeys and Royalty alike. Harris Tweed. Not inexpensive. Dad was never parted from it. Seldom seen outdoors without it. As family we suspected he bathed and slept in it. Some say he was born in it but we think they were joking. In truth he had many. All almost identical!

A few of Dad's favourite jokes

A few of Dad's favourite expressions

Chris Latham-Smith 2022.

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