PHOTOGRAPHS RELATED TO PHILLIP DILKS AND FAMILY

Mr. Dilks is the secretary of the Eccles Probus Club.

He was born in 1913; his father, Harcourt Leslie Dilks, was the manager of a local mill specialising in the production of silks. His mother's family, the Poysers, were Tea merchants, their business, Poyser Sons & Crouchley was based in Manchester. Mr. Dilks believes his family to have been comparatively more affluent than their neighbours in the Swinton/Worsley area. Their home Broadoak Park was set in quite a large area of parkland which the children were compelled not to leave, they were strictly forbidden to make any contact with children or people their mother considered to be not in their class. The family consisted of five children, the donor came after Arthur and Joyce, there were two younger children, Ruth and Brian. Their parents were very religious, the Dilks family had originally been Methodists but later became Christian Scientists. The donor found his family background with it's atmosphere of segregation, lack of family warmth and encouragement of inter sibling competition, stultifying. The children were educated at home, for the early part of their lives. Mr. Dilks later attended Manchester Grammar School, where he failed to make a great apression. The donor suffered a nervous breakdown whilst at school and because of this did not gain any qualifications. Mr. Dilks was always regarded as the family dunce, he was never able to conform to their standards of academic achievment or behaviour. After leaving school he was employed in the family business, Poyser Sons & Crouchley as a general trainee in order that he might learn the rudiments of the business. However, Mr. Dilks was not happy in this employment and left to become a salesman for Kalamazoo systems and, later, selling tyres. Mr. Dilk's wife, Marion, was from Monton, her father had been a master builder. She met her husband whilst he was staying at the home of a friend of his mother from whom Mrs. Dilks was learning hairdressing. At the time, Marion dilks was working in Monton Mill. The couple had two children, Pauline and Pamela, who both became teachers. Following service in the R.A.M.C., Mr. Dilks had hoped for a position in the family business, however, after his demob. in 1945, Mr. Dilks was told that there was no place for him. On the advice of a friend Mr. Dilks decided to train as a teacher. His first place of employment, in 1950, was at a temporary school situated in the old Patricroft Congregational Church where children were accomodated during the last year of their recently extended school career. The scool worked on the basis of four seperate forms lasting from a year from the term in which they would have left, i.e. Jan-Jan; the school bridged the gap in the local education system until the completion of purpose built Secondary Modern schools. Mr. Dilks taught Economics and History at the Ellesmere Park Secondary School from its completion in 1958 until his retirement.