"I
left school at 13 and began work the following day. Since then it has been
all hard work."
This is how
Mr. Albert Reynolds, of The Grange, Ferrybridge Road, Knottingley, summed
up his working life as he prepared to retire from his post as a director
of Bagley & Co. Ltd., Knottingley, at the weekend, at the age of 65.
He started with the firm as an apprentice engineer; was for many years
works manager; and had been a director for nine years. Mr. Reynolds, a
former Knottingley councillor, intends to continue his still active public
life during his retirement, but next month he and his wife Annie are going
to Canada for five months to visit their daughter, Mrs Margaret Beaumont,
her husband Henry, and their five children.
"When I
started work I had to study at evening school for four years," he
said. "I used to work from 6 o’clock in the morning until five at
night, rush home for tea, walk to Pontefract to evening class until 9
o’clock, then walk home again."
He followed
in his father’s footsteps as a member of K.U.D.C. serving for 23 years
before retiring in 1961, and was chairman four times. In 1954 he formed
the Knottingley Independant Association, the forerunner of the present
Rent and Rate Association. He became a West Riding magistrate in 1950, and
has been chairman of the Osgoldcross Licensing Justices for the past seven
years. Mr. Reynolds has been a member of the Divisional Education
Executive, and has been on the Pontefract and Castleford Hospital
Management Committee since its formation in 1948 and recently resigned the
post of President of the Knottingley Conservative Club.
Now in his
29th year as a warden at St. Botolph’s with Christ Church, Knottingley,
he was people’s warden for 21 years and has been Vicar’s Warden for
the past eight years. He is former treasurer of The Parochial Church
Council. He was a sergeant-pilot during the First World War and served in
the Observer Corps during the last war. Well known in local cricketing
circles, he is a former captain and treasurer of Knottingley Cricket Club.
Mrs Reynolds
served for many years as a Governor of Pontefract Girl’s High School,
and has just resigned the post of Enrolling Member of the Knottingley
branch of the Mother’s Union. Mrs Reynolds is also to receive a cocktail
cabinet from John Artis, (London) who are the sales representatives of the
Crystal Glass Company.
