Fore: Open Minded Birkdale Boys

ABOUT AUTHORS Brother and sister John Murray and Mags Eatock were raised in the Marshside area of Southport in a poor but strong family unit. Being born during the late forties and early fifties respectively, they experienced post-war conditions, the teddy boy era, the affluent and rapidly changing sixties etc. etc. John loved sports from an early age and Mags enjoyed all aspects of the arts. John was captain of the Park Golf Club in 2009 and was proud to be elected again in the centenary year of 2014. He has built up successful Roofing and Pitch & Putt businesses, whilst Mags has been a teacher/artist and is now a Reiki Master. John and Alfie Fyles had a very special relationship - Alf was a 'good friend and drinking partner' (John's words), and he also took John under his wing, becoming an influential avuncular figure. Long before John met and subsequently married Alfie's niece Debbie, Alfie and John regularly caddied in the competitions held at local golf clubs such as Royal Birkdale, Southport and Ainsdale, Hillside, and the Hesketh. Alf was a very personable and charming man who had amassed a wealth of stories and anecdotes which would keep people laughing for hours, but only his nearest and dearest saw the pain he often experienced in his life. In 1994, when Alf was on his death bed, John asked him if he had any regrets in life and he said just two - the first, that he and Pat, the love of his life, his wife and mother of his children, had become estranged, and the second, that he had never fulfilled his dream to write and publish his life story. The idea nagged at John, and a few years later he approached Mags to write Alf's biography. Due to their own mother's illness and subsequent death, the idea went on the back burner for a number of years but was regenerated in 2014: this book is the result.