At the service Stella Christie paid the following tribute:
John was born in March 1940 to Johnnie and Emma Davey, joining elder sister Barbara in the family. For the first seven years of his life the family lived in Harewood Avenue, Highroad Well. John grew up happily unaware of the hardships caused by World War II (the fish and chip portions were on the smallish side but were not rationed; so that suited John down to the ground). At the time dad, Johnnie, was a pattern maker at Modern Foundries, part of Asquiths Machine Tools, and mum, Emma, was a manager for the Wallace Mann bakers in King Cross Street, Halifax. Johnnie also had an interest in his father’s basket making works known as the skep shop in Moorfield Street, Halifax.
By 1947 the pair had bought a small grocery and confectionary shop in Hanson Lane to try to improve the standard of living for the family. The premises were old, heating was by open fires and the bath was a cast iron affair in the cellar. Young John and sister Barbara had attic bedrooms above the shop. Emma ran the shop and Johnnie continued his work in the pattern shop as well as managing the basket works that he had taken over from his father. 1947 was the winter of the big freeze and John had vivid memories of the back streets being piled so high with snow that the local kids cut tunnels through the packed snow.
In 1947 John went to the Battinson Road Junior School. After he had been at Battinson Road for two years (a school he remembered as being a bit grim and gloomy), the school converted into the Ostler County Secondary School and John had to move to Warley Road Junior School to complete his primary education. He remembered Warley Road as a much happier place to learn with a good reputation and where he settled quickly and made some good life-long friends. While at Warley Road John captained the football team.
Outside of school John developed a good network of mates who would play in the back streets around Hanson Lane. As a youngster John became interested in sports, watching football and speedway at the Shay, rugby at Thrum Hall. For a short time he became a ballboy at the Shay until his time started to get taken up playing sport himself. The local gang also hired bicylces and spent hours riding them on the cinder-hills of Shroggs Tip. Trips to see films were also a regular treat at the Cosy Cinema on Queen’s Road and the Palladium at King Cross, sadly now long gone. Family holidays were taken in Blackpool, up to three or four times a year; so the shop must have been doing OK for the family to be able to run to that. Stories from that time included Emma having to pick John up from school and taking him to hospital to have a dried pea removed from one of his ears. Another mishap was when Emma had to recover John’s overcoat when he’d agreed to swap it for a bag of conkers.
John was a bright enough boy, but not what you’d call studious. He passed the old 11+ entry examination and was pleased to gain a place at Heath Grammar School, joining the Queens House which he captained in his final year at the school. He had incredibly strong and fond memories of his time at Heath, loving the sporting activities, particularly the rugby, cricket and swimming. He had a great respect for many of his teachers and again made some life-long friends. This was a theme throughout John’s life, and, in later life, he felt himself to be very lucky to have gone through life making such great pals along the way. While at Heath, John turned himself into a very useful rugby union player, playing at full back and kicking goals. On the cricket field he was developing into an attack-minded wicket keeper/batsman. John also enjoyed participating in school plays, often playing comic roles.
John Davey ready for action
During the early 1950s John joined the Boys Brigade at Salem Methodist Church at North Parade. He often looked back on that move as a significant event in his life, as he felt the Boys Brigade officers gave him a sense of responsibility and discipline that set him on the right track in life. He loved the sport, captaining the football team for the Salem BB Company, and made the Halifax Battalion side at both centre half and goalkeeper. John also loved the Boys Brigade camps that took place at Whitsuntide and in the Wakes week holidays. These trips introduced him to the outdoor life in the Yorkshire Dales and particularly caving and potholing, an interest that stayed with him for his entire life.
As John’s sporting interests grew, he joined Northowram Hedge Top Cricket Club, taken there by school friend Brian Kerfoot. At first he played junior cricket before moving up into the second team. The junior side was the outstanding team in the Halifax League at the time and won the league in three consecutive seasons. John was a hard-hitting batsman that was always trying to make runs quickly and in the field he kept wicket. John made more life-long friends at Northowram and played for the club through to the late 70s. He was an occasional player with the first team at Northowram and played a part in the club’s Parish Cup win in 1965 albeit only as 12th man.
In 1957 John met Lydia Stevenson at a dance. Lydia was tiny at only 5ft tall and was the daughter of Russian and Ukranian parents. Lydia’s family had moved from Russia through Poland and Germany to escape the second world war and, by now Lydia had settled with her parents and brother in Halifax. She was an excellent dancer and John was smitten. The only trouble was that Lydia had a strong mind, was very wary of men (her father and brother had been quite challenging for her) and was very clearly not convinced she needed John in her life. It took John several weeks to get Lydia to agree to a date, and he had to work quite hard to get the relationship started.
At the end of John’s happy time at Heath School in 1959, he did well enough to gain a place at Leeds University, and elected to study French and German. John soon realised that he had made a huge mistake, as he was way out of his depth on the languages course. It was a miserable time for him, and was the first time he had really tasted failure. Thankfully by this time John had joined the Bradford Pothole Club following Phil Nash, a friend from the Boys Brigade. The weekends caving and potholing in the Dales with good mates like Grassy Greenwood and Dave Cording provided blessed relief from the misery he was feeling at Leeds Uni.
One significant event in John’s life came in the April of 1961 when he was involved in a caving trip to Simpson’s Pot in Kingsdale above Ingleton. John was life-lining friend and former Heath student Graham Shaw as he climbed down a rock face on a rope ladder. As Graham was descending, a huge flake of rock peeled away from the rock face, hitting Graham as it crashed to the cave floor. John was the first down to Graham and found him concussed, bleeding, with his ankle smashed to pieces. John said that his boot and sock seemed to be all that were holding his ankle together. Graham was in shock; so, despite being deep underground and at risk of exposure and hypothermia, John stripped off his caving clothing and put it on to Graham to keep him warm. A long and arduous cave rescue ensued and Graham made a good recovery after a lengthy period of recuperation. John’s ability to stay calm in a crisis and his selfless act wrapping Graham in his clothing may well have saved his friend’s life.
After an unsuccessful first year at Leeds, John quit his course and took up work as a Junior Clerk working for local government in the Youth Employment department. The pay was quite poor; so John soon moved to the Civil Service with the National Assistance Board in 1963. 1963 was also the year that John’s family sold the shop in Hanson Lane, moving to a house in St Anne’s Road, Skircoat Green where John lived for a short period before moving to his marital home with Lydia.
While John had been struggling with his course at Leeds Uni and then getting started in his working life, Lydia had been away in Stoke Rocheford, near Grantham, completing teacher training. When she completed her training, the couple decided to marry, and tied the knot in 1964 at Salem Methodist Church. The newly-weds bought a semi-detached house in Cheltenham Gardens that became their home for the rest of their lives.
The early days of their marriage became a balancing act with John’s sporting interests, cricket with Northowram, rugby with Heath Old Boys (where he played second team, then captained the newly formed third team), football with Salem and caving with the Bradford Pothole Club, all competing with the need to start to develop the home. DIY and construction became a big element of John’s life from then on, with gardening becoming Lydia’s domain. Around this time, John was also developing an interest in sailing; so early holidays included boating trips on the Norfolk Broads. In time, John went halves with one of his potholing pals, Chris Dufton, and bought a share in a Heron sailing dinghy that was sailed at Yeadon Sailing Club. John later bought his own Enterprise dinghy and sailed for quite a few years at Halifax Sailing Club. Martin still has mixed memories of many a cold, wet and windy afternoon at the Fly Flatts Reservoir, especially when things went badly and the dinghy capsized.
In 1966, on the day that England won the world cup, John and Lydia set off for a holiday in France on John’s BSA motorbike. Lydia had overdone the packing a bit and by Wakefield the bike’s rear wheel bearing gave out. The holiday had to be abandoned, and John had to borrow his dad’s Anglia van to recover the bike. He didn’t even get to watch England’s famous victory.
By July 1967, son Martin came along, and he turned out to be the best son that John could have wished for (Martin wrote this so it could be a bit biased). The family enjoyed life on a modest budget, holidaying in the Norfolk Broads, Scotland and the Lake District, combining family holidays with John’s interest in sailing. As the family became more established and the budgeting became a bit easier, the holidays became a little more elaborate with yacht sailing on the Clyde and in Brittany, and a cruise through Germany being particularly memorable. John also managed to afford his one and only new car when he bought a Mk1 Ford Escort in the mid-70s. He wanted an MGB GT but the finances wouldn’t run to that.
John’s interest in sailing continued when he studied at night-school for a Yachtmaster certificate and took part in weekend sailing trips off the Fleetwood coast with friends Bob Allen, Richard Horsfall and Pete Hendy. He also participated for quite a few years in a regular late-autumn sailing trip on the Norfolk Broads with a group of friends including his cousin, Brian Priestley.
Over time, as John’s DIY and construction skills became more advanced, his plans became more ambitious. He embarked on a plan to extend the family home through a long-term self-build project that culminated in a single-story extension comprising garage, laundry room and sun lounge. It was a fine achievement but did take John over 30 years to complete.
John’s career with the civil service was an entirely unhappy one from a work perspective as he consistently felt that the department was badly managed and under-resourced. The lack of job satisfaction though was very much offset by the friendships that John formed with colleagues throughout his time in the Civil Service. John saw himself as a principled and conscientious worker but always fought what he saw as a management that were more concerned with their own promotion prospects than the welfare of their team members. John set his stall out to challenge weak managers and felt that his bosses saw him as an awkward and difficult employee. The constant battle with management and the system took its toll, and John had a couple of periods of absence towards the end of his career with work related stress. When the opportunity came along in 1990, John took early retirement from the DHSS at the age of 50. Although John’s career was not to his liking, his work did once make the national newspapers. During one of his periods in the role of Special Investigator working on benefit fraud, John was working on a case involving a claimant who was also working as a Fortune Teller in a shop in Haworth High Street. During the school holidays John took Lydia and Martin to Haworth and sent Lydia in to have her fortune told by “Madame Lavinia”. Having taken a witness statement from Lydia, John pursued a fraud prosecution against the unsuspecting claimant. The Daily Mail reported on the situation with a headline saying “ Fortune-teller didn’t see that one coming!” John’s perseverance in sticking with the DHSS for 27 years finally paid off in retirement with the security of a government pension meaning that John never had to worry too much about making ends meet financially during his later years.
John subsequently took on other jobs including a role on the caretaking staff at the Crossley Heath School, a spell as a white van driver for Dixons Wireworks (he was released after twice filling up the diesel van with petrol) and a period as a salesman at the studio of artist and friend Geoff Cowton. Out of work John and Geoff enjoyed walking trips to the Yorkshire Dales. John also had a short-lived career as a self-employed odd-job man. He enjoyed all of these jobs much more than any of the roles he held in the Civil Service.
During retirement John continued his connection with the Bradford Pothole Club and the Heath Old Boys Association through committee work. At the pothole club headquarters in Horton-in-Ribblesdale John and a friend put many hours converting an old pig shed into a weekend accommodation apartment for club members use. After 30 years of pothole club membership, John achieved the status of honorary life member of the club and had over 60 years membership by the time of his death.
John and Lydia enjoyed holidays abroad including coach trips with Gain Travel, trips to France to stay with friends Brian and Sheila Kerfoot at their property, and regular trips with cousin, Brian Priestley and his wife Sheila on their narrowboat, exploring the canals of England. There were also countless trips out to local garden centres, where the coffee shops usually got a visit. The couple’s last holiday together was a highly memorable cruise on the Danube with Viking River Cruises to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
During their retirement, John and Lydia also enjoyed trips to the theatre to see music acts and musical theatre shows. Jack Jones was a favourite performer, and they enjoyed many of the West End musicals, both in the West End and on tour in Leeds or Manchester.
Sadly, Lydia fell seriously ill in 2020. It was a highly stressful time for John, who lost a lot of weight with the worry of it all. Lydia finally passed away in the August of that year. Knowing she had suffered badly through her illness, John bore the loss with fortitude and got on with life, supported by Martin and wife Jayne. He continued to engage in DIY activities, enjoying building, welding, and woodworking projects. He was also a prolific generator of firewood for friends to use on their wood-burners. Every piece was meticulously cut to length and packed in a reinforced wine box recovered from the supermarket. Boy was he serious about his firewood production!
Unfortunately, the last 15 months or so has been a struggle for John. His physical and mental health has been failing him, and it has curtailed a lot of the activities that John so much enjoyed. In late 2023/early 2024 he picked up a bug that threw him off his food and his medication. As a long-term diabetic that allowed his sugar levels to creep up to dangerously high levels. One evening Martin had to rush him into hospital and he was put straight onto the resuscitation ward and was diagnosed with ketoacidosis, sepsis and acute kidney injury. That really took it out of John, and he was never quite the same after that. From then on, he received daily district nurse visits for insulin injections to control the diabetes and he never drove again after that. That limited his independence as he loved to be able to pop out to Tool Station or Screwfix or into town when the mood took him. During the summer of 2024, John’s mood started to dip. and some strange and quite compulsive behaviours started to surface. After some time, he was diagnosed with psychotic depression and hospitalised in Wakefield for a few weeks, before returning home in much better spirits. The improvement was short-lived and as the winter nights started to draw in and John couldn’t potter outside like he loved to do, some of the same behaviours started to reemerge. More recently in mid-February John has a day where he fell three times in the same day at home. During one of the falls, he took a nasty bang to the head on the way down. Martin took him to A&E, and he was admitted for assessment and treatment. While in Calderdale Royal John suffered a heavy stroke, on his 85th birthday of all days. Sadly, the damage was too severe to come back from and John passed away peacefully a few days later.
There is absolutely no doubt that the mates John made throughout his life were hugely important to him. The camaraderie that came through school, the Boys Brigade and team sports meant a lot, and he made strong and enduring friendships. From the backstreets of Hanson Lane, through the Warley Road and Heath schools, the Boys Brigade, cricket and football teams, his sailing groups and work colleagues John forged relationships that lasted a lifetime. It was his potholing that was probably the most important interest though. The friendships made in adverse circumstances underground where the conditions could be harsh, and mistakes could be costly, were some of the most important to him.
Another aspect that can’t be over-looked in summing up John Davey is his love for working with his hands. His building, woodworking and metalworking filled countless hours, and he was never happier than when working on some project or other to help family of friends (much to Lydia’s annoyance at times when her job list wasn’t getting any attention).
The other vitally important aspect of John’s life was his family. In Lydia he had found the love of his life and, since her passing in 2020, life hasn’t been quite the same. For son Martin, losing John is going to be tough. The two have always been close, perhaps even more so since Lydia’s death. John also thought the world of daughter-in-law Jayne, who Lydia had taught many years ago at Warley Road Junior School.
Martin and Jayne will take comfort in the fact that John led a long, full and happy life. He spent his time with people he thought a lot about and doing the things that made him happy. He was always looking to help others and loved to laugh at a good (and often old) joke.
Oh, and one other thing, as many of you will know, boy could he talk!
