His memories from a lifetime ago are so vivid that Ray Howard is instantly taken back to a fateful, life-changing night in 1953.
He was just 10 and tucked up in bed as a violent storm raged around their terraced council home. He says: “It was a foul, nasty night… freezing, freezing cold. I can still hear that wind blowing.
“The best place you could be under terrible weather conditions like that was to go to bed, and that’s what we did.
