Les Yates left school in 1955 at the age of fifteen. In those days if you failed your 11 plus your only choice was to attend a secondary modern school with very little prospect of gaining any qualifications. Fortunately, in the 1950s there was plenty of employment in the local cotton mills and other local industries.
Les retired in 2005 having spent most of his working life in the printing industry and in those fifty years, thankfully, only spent one month unemployed. He now cares for his wife, Ann who suffers with multiple sclerosis.