The youngster would spend hours gazing at passersby from his window ledge at The White Bear.

"The White Bear was the greatest watch point in the town," said John.

He was just six when the Second World War broke out and from his vantage point he kept a keen eye on the activities of the soldiers camped nearby on the Heath.

Captain Turnbull, a Para who stayed with the family, was also keen on the pub's windows - he liked to climb through them.

"He would climb in through the window so that we didn't know what time he was getting in at night," said John.

In all, four Paras lodged at the Canute Place pub, which became the regiment's unofficial headquarters.

Two of the visitors, Jimmy White and Laurie Grey, were like chalk and cheese.

"The night before a drop Grey would sit around the table perspiring because he was so nervous," said John.

"White on the other hand would be telling jokes."

The pub was a popular haunt with many soldiers.

"It was all part of the British togetherness during the war," said John.

"The soldiers were picked up along Manchester Road and driven back to save them two drunken miles of walking."

As a boy with just a sister for company, there was little to do.

But the pub's basement provided the Howards with an ideal bunker to shelter from Germany's bombers.

There they would huddle together and listen to the drone of aircraft engines as the German bombers headed for Manchester.

"I was never frightened, just excited," said John.

"It isn't until you are older that you are able to put into perspective what we went through."

Life still went on and for John, that meant lessons at Silk Mill Street, and later Egerton.

He left school at 16 and got a job in the tailoring trade.

After five years he could make his own suit, but he was frustrated.

Then at 21 he was called up for National Service.

Part of his two-year training was spent at Catterick in Yorkshire - a place where the nights were cold and the barracks were heated by an oven.

He recalled one night when they awoke to find a flock of SHEEP had sneaked into their barracks.

"They'd been sitting around the fire to keep themselves warm," said John.

His regiment, the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, were billeted to Bergen-Belsen.

"It was an awful place. In the ground at the concentration camp we could still see badges off the uniforms of Germans," said John.

"There were clothes visible through the dust."

He returned to England and began to look for another job.

He found one - working for Harrods where he eventually became a buyer of leather products.

"I felt that everything had gone full circle," said John.

"My grandfather had worked as a leather buyer for Richard Watt and then I was working for Harrods doing the same thing."

John also modelled for the company in the early 60s.

But in 1965, the lure of the restaurant trade became too much and he returned to Knutsford to set up The Tavern.

It was one of the first Danish restaurants in England, but at first it wasn't the great success he had hoped for.

"On my first night no one came into the restaurant," said John, of Ruskin Court.

In the 1970s he took on the running of the King's Coffee House from his ailing father.

John co-founded La Belle Epoque and also became a tour guide for Americans visiting Britain.

Viscount Ashbrook had spotted his skills and took him on as a custodian of Arley Hall.

"That was one of the happiest times in my life," he said. "I never used to be able to face a crowd, but since then I have no problem giving lectures."

He now puts his newly-found skills into practice, giving talks about Knutsford's history through the eyes of his family who have lived in the town since 1840.

Most, though, know they can find him on a summer's afternoon - watching cricket at Toft's ground in Chelford Road.

Bergen

The pub attracted a lot of the soldiers and John remembers some real characters from the American camp.

Whenever a fight broke out and there were Americans at the scene, a white jeep would pull up and with the American police inside.

If any Americans were present they would be punished and driven back to the camp.

On one occasion however the police were nowhere to be found when Harry needed them most.

Some drunk Americans got into the cellar of The White Bear and stole a barrel of beer.

"My dad was so small that no one would ever hit him," said John.

"But a big American soldier held him against a wall with his feet dangling while the others stole the barrel."His job in the war was to write up the reports of a technician on the performance of the latest tanks.

The Conqueror was one such tank and it had a few faults.

It was so big it couldn't move over wet ground and the shells it required were too heavy for the men to carry them.

John would be locked away in a room with a typewriter to copy up the report.

"Outside I could hear the dispatch rider revving up his engine and I knew that the report had to be finished," said John.

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