Meet the Shedder: David Sparrow

Like our chairman I also was born in 1934 but in Finchley, London but at 18 months moved to Ruislip, then in Middlesex when my parents opened a “High-class Tobacconist and Confectionery” shop, their words. Ruislip was a splendid place to grow up as a child and with a gang of boys we had playing fields, several extensive woods and Lido all accessed without charge not necessarily legally. In later years my Mother told my wife that I would go out in the morning and not return until near dinner time and did not know where I had been. It was a much freer society in those days. 

After the start of the war my parents decided that I and my brother together with a young niece should be evacuated to relations in Bridgwater, Somerset which was interesting apart from our host serving tripe and onions and fish, which was served up cold, my fault for always arriving late at the dinner table. It it was here that I suffered from chicken pox which itched badly and was unwisely scratched which left scars. We were there for only about a year and were brought back as our parents decided that Ruislip was not a place to be intentionally bombed even though Northolt Airport was nearby. A land mine did fall killing a horse and blowing out the windows of most of the high street shops apart from my parents’. 

All this interrupted my primary schooling. I adamantly informed my parents that I did not wish to go to the local Secondary Modern school after hearing tales from my brother and I was allowed to go to Harrow. I did thrive there and became captain of 1st elevens of cricket and football. House captain of Iona and Head Boy.  

At the end of schooling my parents visited the head for advice on a career as I refused to be in the shop. I do not think my father wanted me either as my brother stayed on. The recommendation was that I should not try to become a professional footballer rather to be a surveyor. That led me to study at Regent Street polytechnic where I learned to play basketball which eventually took me to playing in the World Student Games in Bucharest. We were thrashed by all whom we played as the communist countries who then funded the Games had their Olympic sides out. 

Following 3 years at the Poly and with my first exam done I joined a London firm of Quantity Surveyors in Charing Cross Road at the princely sum of £4 a week. I would have been better off as a professional footballer. Then followed the joining of a number of practices in London making reasonable increases in salary at each change. Slowly passing my intermediate and final exams but not until I married, when at last Anne forced to revise.  

I met my future wife Anne Paulin at the Ruislip YC’s where socials were well attended but not so any meetings that had a political bent though we did help out in canvassing, which was fun. We married in 1959 and have just celebrated our 64th Wedding Anniversary. 

I have had an interesting, and often challenging, business career. I worked with a Watford-based firm of quantity surveyors for a number of years. They asked me to set up and manage a branch office in Chichester. A great deal of work was expected from Portsmouth but never materialised.So the branch office was closed but I decided to stay on in Chichester. I set up a specialised printing business providing documents for quantity surveyors and other construction practices. This business flourished for a while but at age 53 I found myself out of work and not having practised as a QS for some 12 years. 

At a low ebb I was invited to apply for a job at West Sussex County Council in the County Architect’s office. The initial salary was a pittance but was increased and I was tasked with taking on emergency building works, mainly for the Education Department. This job really suited me but it sadly came to an end nine years later and at age 62 I was once again unemployed but with no intention of getting another job. 

Now came my fourth career being retirement which I was certainly born for, giving more time to our garden which was later opened for the National Garden Scheme and after a few years for St. Wilfrid’s Hospice as they gave much more help, and we knew exactly where the money raised was going to. 

I also had time to carry out charity work, driving for Contact 88 until 70, being Recorder for the St. Pancras Corporation founded in 1689, for over 20 years. Being unpaid, unqualified warden to the residents of the Almshouses in St. Pancras for the Dear’s Trust in excess of 20 years. Being involved in the raising of funds to have four further Almshouses on the same site and being Project Manager during their construction. In 2021 I was awarded a civic award by the City Council. Anne should have been included in that. 

I also had more time for my sporting activities progressing through cricket, football, basketball, squash, tennis, skiing, and golf. The latter two activities I took up at the age of 58. Three of those sports landed me in hospitals in Hitchin, Warsaw and Sofia. All these activities have come to an end now though I am about to try short tennis. 

We have three children all of whom were the first in our families to go to university and all successfully employed with the eldest retired but working hard to restore a very large house in Ireland. We also have four grandchildren, the youngest of whom is working as a physiotherapist in Australia. Hopefully for only another year. 

Following retirement and a reduction in my sporting activities I joined the City of Chichester Rotary Club some three years ago and I was asked to become their nominee as trustee of the Chichester Men’s Shed and I look forward to it shortly being fully operational at Fishbourne under the chairmanship of Brian Bird.