TO the outside world it's just another nondescript county. To Bob Burrows, Cheshire throbs with centuries of world-class talent. Peter Elson reports
CHESHIRE'S national image is not overwhelming. Many people regard it as an insignificant English county that only fields the 17th biggest population and rates just 28th in size.
The common view is that the county is filled with little more than black and white buildings and Cheshire cheese, that infernal cat and a few monochrome cows (to match the houses). It pales besides pushier, plusher counties like Yorkshire and Gloucestershire.
Bob Burrows aims to change all that with his new book Cheshire's Famous. His has brought to prominence forgotten facts such as Britain's greatest all-round 20th century cricketer was born in Heswall.
A son of Birkenhead and retired senior bank executive, Bob once managed 110 branches across North West England and North Wales from his Church Street office, in Liverpool. He is determined that Cheshire should be given its due respect.
Or rather its high-achieving residents. He says: "There are 16 Victoria Cross winners from Cheshire, its officers and men were instrumental at Agincourt, the Spanish Armada, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Indian Mutiny. Two guys from Runcorn fought in the Zulu Wars at Rorke's Drift."
Warming to his heartfelt-theme he muses: "There are also links with the Titanic, the first flight across the Atlantic, the Atom Bomb, conquering Everest and the Moon landing. Realising that Cheshire was involved in all this, I started to wonder what I could do with all this information."
For Cheshire, Bob means "old Cheshire", including Birkenhead and Wirral, the county before the blasted Heathite local government reforms of 1974.
He adds: "You can't take that away: the politicians have tried, but you can't. My definition of qualifying to be Cheshire man or woman is that you've got to be born or spent your major formative and creative years in the county.
"I've ruled out footballers who come on contract, but not Matt Busby who was born in Scotland, but spent more than 40 years of his adult life living in Sale and was a Cheshire football manager at Manchester United.
Another Scotsman, Alex Ferguson made his fame here, too, with Manchester United. Bobby Charlton - yes - as he came as 15-year-old teenager from Northumberland. Mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington planned his Everest expeditions in Bowdon. Footballer Michael Owen lives in Hawarden, North Wales, but was born in Chester.
Intriguingly, Bob, who lives in Macclesfield, was born in Wrexham in 1941, but only to avoid the Blitz, and returned to Birkenhead a few weeks later. His father was an Irish Protestant and worked as a salesman and his mother was an English Roman Catholic.
Birkenhead (where Bob still has family), so often over-shadowed by Liverpool, acquits itself in fine style in his book. He says: "Glenda Jackson has won two Oscars - does that qualify her as Britain's best actress? The contribution to popular music is vast, but I've included operatic and classical performers, such Valerie Masterson, also from Birkenhead, and one of Britain's greatest sopranos.
"There have been some fascinating discoveries for me such as the top cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts, another Birkonian. I knew nothing about him but I discovered that his prolific career includes TV's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Alec Guinness and films like Room With a View and Remains of the Day.
"I hadn't realised that Patricia Routledge (Birkenhead yet again) was such a fine singer and was once the toast of Broadway musicals."
Now aged 63, Bob had a trial for Stockport County FC when he was 16, but realised two years later that he would not make a professional footballer. He also considered journalism, imagining himself jetting around the world reporting on Australian and West Indian test matches or the World Boxing Championships.
Abandonment of both these early goals forced him into a highly successful banking career. He chuckles: "This book will probably come as a surprise to my former staff who thought that I couldn't read and write."
Bob retired from banking as area director aged 52, in 1991, as he and his wife Pat wanted to travel the world, which they did. He says: "I'm not the kind to sit round in a cardie by the fire, but the time was right - I was the oldest of the 1,000 staff in my area.
"It was a big wrench leaving Liverpool. I used to host fortnightly lunches at Castle Street in the grand old Bank of England building which we then owned. It was a great time.
"As a soccer fan, when I started the job in 1989, one of my first tasks organising a coach party of bank customers to go Wembley to watch Everton v Liverpool. Talk about putting a bear in the jam factory."
His son Nick and daughter Penny are both in banking. He says: "They know more about banking than I do. At least that's what they tell me.
"Being area director is a high profile job, projecting the bank and driving the profit. I was often travelling around as I saw it essential to meet as many of my staff and customers as possible. You've got to keep the workers happy."
You wouldn't get far in banking management these days, I remark. Bob splutters: "Don't get me going about modern management methods."
So I don't. Instead we talk about his deep love of cricket (he played in the Cheshire and local leagues for 30 years and soccer Sunday leagues). Reading up on his interest he discovered the wealth of talent that has emerged from Cheshire and started writing for local magazines.
"It was very much a personality-driven thing. I discovered the Ashes tradition of the England-Australia cricket matches was started off by A N Hornby from Nantwich. While reading Ian Botham's autobiography I found he was born in Heswall on November 24, 1955 (at Heswall Children's Hospital) which amazed me.
"Ian lived on the Wirral until he was four, when his parents Leslie and Marie Botham moved to Somerset. Although leaving at such a young age makes a claim on him borderline, Cheshire has still played our part in the life of a 20th century cricketing legend.
"I was also inspired by having played on these wonderful, beautiful cricket grounds around Cheshire, like Cholmondeley (overlooked by the castle), Pott Shrigley, near Bollington, and Over Peover. Then I looked at the Commonwealth Games and realised Cheshire has provided so many high-achieving competitors.
"The book's text was changing by the day right up to deadline particularly with the Olympics coming up we had a lot of Cheshire athletes qualifying: young Matt Langridge only just made it into the rowing team, as did the gymnasts Beth Tweddle and Rebecca Mason."
Information was gleaned from libraries, newspapers, biographical dictionaries and the internet. He says: "I'm very interested in history, so I started looking at that and other categories: science, culture and entertainment. Cheshire has made a surprisingly large and long contribution to national and international life.
"It is an immense pleasure finding out that Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Beeston, from Bunbury of all places, was knighted aged 89 for defeating the Spanish Armada with his ship Dreadnought the previous year! He was born in 1499, served under four monarchs and died in 1601, aged 102.
"The royal standard bearer for Richard the Lionheart was Mychael de Carrington, in 1189, and off I went into another rich subject.
"I think the incredible historical worth of our Cheshire churches is shamefully overlooked. So many mementoes of the times of people like Beeston and Carrington are contained in these churches through effigies and relics.
"People should get out there and appreciate them, instead they're forgotten treasures which also makes them very vulnerable to theft and vandalism."
If there is such a cornucopia of material, why has nobody compiled a similar book before? Bob says: "Cheshire has had plenty of books on walks, mysteries and ghosts, but with this subject it's so easy to leave someone out or make a factual mistake and get criticised. That's why nobody else has done this book."
There is a spin-off in the pipeline called Cheshire's Infamous, for various people "too naughty" to appear in this current volume. He says: "It's smaller, but more biting.
"Cheshire just rolls on and on. The publishers kept saying, 'Stop, stop!', but I kept discovering more nuggets. Did you know Gladstone was educated in Wilmslow?"
If that's not enough, Bob is also simultaneously publishing The Fighter Writer, a biography of Sgt Joe Lee, the Black Watch's World War I soldier poet. He was once rated alongside Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but then mysteriously disappeared from view, possibly after a row with the Poet Laureate.
Further back on the production line is Bob's book He Said She Said, about the remarks couples say while in love, contrasted with their responses after falling out. His wife Pat types much of his manuscripts. Does she get credit for her help in all these endeavours?
"Oh yes, you've got to keep the workers happy," chuckles Bob.
* CHESHIRE'S Famous: A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrity Cestrians, by Bob Burrows, Breedon Books, £14.99.
