Garth Dawson, studio/press photographer. Born 1924.
Attended Paddock House Grammar school until the age of Eight, then to St Pauls School. Oswaldtwistle until my father thought that the Accrington Grammar school would give me a good education...
Left the Grammar With only a pass in Art and geography and obtained a job Working for the London Midland & Scottish Railway as a Telegraph linesman (Telephones and electric signalling Equipment) which was just at that time was being introduced.
In 1942 volunteered for RAF aircrew until 1946 as(Wireless/Operator) Air gunner, ended the war in Coastal Command flying in Vickers Wellington's based at Barrow in Furness.
After the war I returned to the railway but I was not very happy, so in 1948 I resigned and commenced work with my father who had a Shoe Retail and Repair business in Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, just below The Palladium cinema.
My father was also interested in photography and encouraged me to pursue it as a hobby ...Eventually I took it from being just a hobby and opened a photographic studio in Union Road, Oswaldtwistle on the same row as St Pauls school in 1949.
Accrington photographs
Garth Dawson Studio
(Strangely my mother was telling me only the other day, about his first studio being in Oswaldtwistle, and how she remembered going there to have photographs taken as a small child.)