From there I went to Burscough Ordinance Stores as I had heard they were wanting a man to repair case wood packing. I was lucky and managed to aquire the job. I started the following morning on this work and was astonished with the little work I was supposed to do but I carried on and did what I was told to but I knew why, when pay day came the money I received was only what I had to pay for tax when working in the mine. But I thought it's better than nothing and if I could stick it for a year and get myself fit again I could go back to the mine. In the meantime it would also help me to get a bit more done on my holding as I was not as tired when I had done a day's work. I started to build up my poultry stock a little but had to be careful not to overdo it as the rations were still short to feed with. I had a little more time to scrounge around and do a little bit of exchanging on the Black Market which at the time was very conspicuous amongst anybody dealing with livestock. I remember while I was at Burscough I and my mate who had a holding near me and also worked at Burscough, got in touch with a pig dealer who would exchange eggs for bacon which was very scarce at the time. After a lot of bargaining we finally came to a deal, two sides of bacon for the equal cost in eggs but the real trouble was how to get them home as he would not risk taking his van to run us home, after studying the matter over we decided to carry a side of bacon each on our shoulder. We stood the risk of being pulled up by someone in authority and if anyone deserved his bacon it was myself and my friend, but we managed it after quite a few stops. I was glad to slap that bacon on the table when I reached home.

As time went on I knew I could not get fit enough to go back in the mine so I did the best with my holding and working at the Ordinance Stores. I had been there about three years when the boss came along to me and said "I am going to give you three bob plus on your wages and make you a semi-skilled box maker". I thanked him and thought to myself this fellow is putting me amongst the money bags because my wage with the three bob plus was £3 1s 6d with stoppages out for a 45 hour week. Sometimes we could get a little overtime which helped us to pay for our train fare to work. Sometimes we would go on our bicycles when the weather was good but it was hard work cycling to and from work.
As weeks went by I was becoming acquainted generally with the men and the bosses and the general run of the place, and was put on other kinds of work which suited me but was kept in charge of the box making department with an assistant to help me. This also put another three bob plus on my wages, making a total income of £3 4s 6d per week. My chest started to expand as I said to myself "If I keep going on like this I shall soon be in the top bracket class".

Everything was going smoothly for me at home and at work until one day I had an order of forty cases to send to an army depot in South Wales. These had to be loaded on a truck to be taken to the railway siding and I was helping a mate to load them when one of the cases dropped or slipped off the truck on to my knee, severing a vein which instantly started swelling to twice its normal size. They rushed me to Ormskirk Hospital and the first thing I got from the Doctor who examined me was "I am afraid, my man, you have a broken leg. You must have had a wallop to do this", to which I replied "I don't think so Doctor". He then said "We will get you under the X-ray as soon as possible and then we will know". I was taken to the X-ray theatre and was duly X-rayed, I saw them take the X-ray plate to a light and consult each other, finally they came to me and said "We are glad to see you have nothing broken but you have a vein completely severed on the side of your knee and the blood is swelling your leg very badily, so we shall have to start immediately to extract some of the blood which is congealing in your leg. Do you think you can stick up to it without us putting you under as time is precious and we don't want to delay the job" I said "Carry on if it's for the best" They had me on the slab about 40 minutes, bandaged the leg up and took me on a stretcher and put me in bed in Ward 3. I was completely jiggered and did that bed feel nice to me. This lot caused me to be off work again for about two months but I was lucky this time as I was able to draw from my employers wage while I was off work. But once again the holding had been neglected and I was beginning to get cheesed off with the holding.

I was 61 years old at this time and knew when I attained the age of 65 I would have to retire and began to study the best method to keep going when I'm retired. My first thought was to get the hard work off my back, that was tilling and ploughing the land up as I knew I could not do this but carried on the best I could for about two years and then luck came my way. I was with a friend of mine having a quiet drink in the Plough Inn, Lathom, where the part time farmers used to get together and talk over the doings of the day, when an old pit friend of mine walked in with his son. the usual procedure was, "Hello Tom. Not seen you for quite a while, how's things doing your way?", with that we got talking about my holding. I just said to him "At present I am on a sticky patch." His son said to me "What do you mean Mr Yates?" So I explained the whole thing to him and he just simply said "I can do something for you as I can get and borrow any kind of farming machinery from my Boss when I have finished for the day". I said to him, "What about coming down to our house this weekend and I can show you what I require", "All right, I will", he told me.
The weekend came and turn up he did and after two hours discussion we finally came to an agreement both suitable to him and myself. At first he asked me to sub-let the piece of land to him as it would help me to part pay our rent. "No I can't do that as it might revert back on me from my landlords if they find out. By the way, young fellow, what will you grow on this land?" He then told me "My wife and I have a little van and we take all kinds of vegetables round the locality. At present I have to buy them from different sources and by growing my own I can do a better thing out of it as I can grow what I want here, with your permission".