OUR story last week of Cowlersley-born David Halstead and his textiles career in South Africa gave David Lee, originally from Crosland Moor, food for thought.

Like Mr Halstead, Mr Lee and his wife, Barbara, are retired. Unlike Mr Halstead, that retirement has brought Mr Lee back to this country after not one, but two, ventures into Africa.

Mr Lee said: “David Halstead now lives in Prince Albert, Little Karoo and as I live here in Marsh there can be little in common, you’d think.

“But Mr Halstead and I must have crossed paths at some time as we sometimes used the inland route when the N2 (coastal) highway (from Cape Town to Ermelo in the far east of the country) was under construction between 1977 and 1997.”

David was born in 1942, the second of four children to Connie and Geoffrey Lee, of William Street, Crosland Moor.

His older sister was Shirley and younger brothers Bill and Geoffrey jnr.

In about 1949 the entire family moved to Tanganyika.

David said: “Our father was an engineer and took up a job with the Groundnut Scheme in Lindi near Dodoma. I went to boarding school in Kogwa, a day and night train journey from Dar-es-Salaam. We later moved to Dar-es-Salaam.”

The Groundnut Scheme was a disastrous idea by Clement Atlee’s Labour government to provide the UK with groundnut cooking oil by ripping up thousands of acres of colonial Tanganyika and planting peanuts.

The project was beset by mechanical and organisational problems and by floods and droughts and cost the British taxpayer £49m. It was shut down in 1951.

The Lee family returned to Huddersfield in 1953 just before the Queen’s Coronation and David continued his schooling at Moldgreen and Deighton.

“In 1958 I started work as an apprentice pattern maker at Frank Ives Ltd in Folly Hall, next door to Taylor and Lodge and where Appleyard’s Garage is now,” he said.

“I’ve forgotten some of the names of the people I worked with and I hope they’ll forgive me.

“The ones I remember are George Holroyd and sons Martin and Austin, John Durrands, Ben Flooks, Geoff Livesey, Keith Bradley and Len Townsend.”