Ian Williams President 2026

A much travelled Old Barrovian

I think my life so far reveals that I am one of the few that took our school song Outward Bound seriously! You’ll see why if you read on.

I was born in Manchester in April 1954, where I had a happy young life. However, my dad’s job moved us to Barrow in 1961 when I was 7 years old. I remember the beautifully sunny early summer evening as we turned up in my new home for the next 10 years, Furness Park Road. Then it was St. Paul’s Junior School, and onto BBGS.

My first year was Sam Price’s last year before “Chip” (later “Moonhead”) Robinson took over.

I have very clear sports-related memories of Barrow and the Grammar School, from the lows of cross country first thing during PE with “Ely” Eels, to the highs of winning for the first year the First XI Cup, winning the final of the local school knock-out competition, at Barrow AFC’s Holker Street ground.

For several years a small group of us less talented, but very enthusiastic, soccer fanatics would take over the north corner of the school playground during break, lunch and after school, with a tough but tatty tennis ball, playing attack against defence. Modern day Premier League set-piece coaches take note!

I’m naturally right footed, but at one point I suffered a right knee injury that left me limping. I could only kick effectively with my left for several months, and practice makes perfect. Little did I know this injury setback would benefit me later.

With subjects on the art side, teachers I remember well would be Eaton, “Cash” Pickthall, Kimber, Wynn, Galliford, Purves, Cranston, Bellamy, “Hairy Sneck” King and “Danny” Kay. Although I best remember“Slug” Sharp and “Gutman” Otto – my favourite subject (noticeable in my later choice of career) was, of course, Geography.

In the “A” stream I jumped over Third Year and joined older kids for the run up to O-levels, including Emlyn Hughes’s younger brother, Gareth.

My best friend was always Jim (then Jimmy) Dickinson, another sports Jack of All Trades, who was a major fan of the progressive music of the time, and indeed still today spends some time as a professional local radio music presenter.

Weekend mornings I would listen to “Stewpot” on Radio 1 with his nostalgic variety of kids’ songs, like “One Wheel on My Wagon” and “Puff the Magic Dragon”. I did not realise at the time that Puff’s fabled land called “Hona-Lee” actually exists, let alone that I would go there. (It’s on the north coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The correct spelling is Hanalei).

We listened to music all year round and played football in the winter. In the summer we would sneak in the back way to play tennis at Vickers Sports Club, and friends and I were developing a keen interest in girls, especially at St Paul’s Youth Club.

The glorious summer of ’69 was dominated by NASA’s successful moon landing, but we barely noticed it against the more immediately engaging subjects of girls, music and football.

I entered Sixth Form and remember enjoying the luxury of free periods, usually in the library, and lunchtimes in the Common Room debating the merits of Pink Floyd, Led Zep or the Moody Blues with Chiz, Spoo and Jap’ead. Occasionally we would eye the latest illicit Oz magazine that someone always managed to smuggle in.

Most of my friends were fans of Barrow AFC, and Jim and I were regulars on the Holker Street End. Chris Kemp, Jim and I still travel to watch Barrow at least once a year, and meet with Derek Fyer, but these days we watch from the Stand! Although loyal to Barrow, everyone also had a First Division club they followed. Jim’s was Chelsea, Nigel Stevenson’s was Everton, mine (being true Manchester born) was Man City.

With John Ashton and Stevenson, I tried out for Barrow Rangers in the local Under 16’s football league. The team’s left-wing position was vacant, so I was in luck. (The injury to my right leg of a few years earlier was paying off, and I was the only lad who could take a decent out-swinging corner from the left.)

I passed English, History, Economics and General Studies at “A” level but then my dad moved us again – back to Manchester - and, after 10 great years, at the age of 17, I left Barrow. So now the Outward Bound from Barrow adventure begins:

At Marple Hall Grammar I played Centre Forward for the senior First XI and topped up the grades on my “A”levels. Leaving sixth form I headed to Birmingham University, Faculty of Law, for a year where I had lots of fun but didn’t learn much academically. I dropped out and returned to Manchester.

I was uncertain of my future direction for a while, during which time, as well as drinking a lot of beer with many Mancunian friends, I continued playing football. But the lure of foreign lands was growing. One summer I travelled alone via the land route to the Greek Islands - and fell in love with Thassos. It was a time when you could still spear fish for your own dinner, and have a local taverna cook it for you.

Back in Manchester again, I finally joined the world of commerce as a buying management trainee for a mail order group. I was promoted to their overseas department, which was a UK buying office for their European catalogue subsidiaries, and I was sent on a couple of short foreign business trips for them.

I applied for and got a job in London as an Assistant Buyer for a pioneering British self-assembly furniture company, whilst living in Ealing, and after a few years I was promoted to Buyer.

While in the London area I married Wife One, moved out to the Bedfordshire commuter belt,had two kids, and I continued playing football.

Then I was headhunted by Dixons, also in London, as Senior Buyer in the consumer electronics field. With Dixons the serious travelling began. I went Westaway to the US, and Eastaway to the Far East regularly.

The extensive work involved developing the early home computer business in the UK, and early strategic planning for the mobile phone business. I was a hard-nosed negotiator on behalf of my mentor Lord (then just plain old Stanley) Kalms, occasionally facing down table-sides full of Japanese “salarymen”, and even managing a “drawn” negotiation with Lord (then just plain Alan) Sugar.

I travelled extensively with Dixons in the days when you could still smoke cigars on airplanes. I saw Frank Sinatra live in Vegas, Japan’s bullet train which was new technology, and most of China was still reminiscent of the Middle Ages.

But my next career move was abroad permanently. I moved my family (Wife One, kids two) to Singapore where I worked buying duty free goods for the new Changi Airport store of the Duty-Free Shoppers Group.This was an entrepreneurial private company that dominated the growing travel shopping markets of Asia and the Pacific.

Singapore was a great place to raise a young family. I still found time to play football (striker for the Singapore Club) and run through jungles with the local Hash House Harriers.

I spent some vacation time in Australia where my growing son and I climbed to the summit of Ayers Rock. (Nowadays called Uluru and completely off limits).

After a few years I was promoted to being one of Duty Free’s Vice Presidents of Merchandise at their headquarters in San Francisco. The family upped sticks again, and we lived in Walnut Creek, a pleasant California commuter town. I had a variety of retail buying roles there, including supplier relationships, inventory planning, and new product development. I continued extensive business travel to Europe and around the Pacific, from New Zealand in the south to Alaska in the north and travelled to the mid-Pacific considerably. (Although I have been to Hawaii on more than thirty occasions, which may sound wonderful on paper, the reality of travelling there for work is far more mundane).

But life wasn’t all work. On a vacation to Maui my son and I continued our adventure sports, cycling down from the summit crater of the 10,000-foot-high Haleakala active volcano to the sea.

When not travelling for business, I managed to set up and be the first coach for my son’s local soccer team. I remember the spirited debate with a bunch of American 13-year-old boys on what our new team’s official name should be – you know Americans, they love their dramatic sports team names. I had to fend off suggestions for Pirates, Wolverines, Cougars, Raiders, Grizzlies, Jalapenos and more. We settled on Walnut Creek Rangers – sufficiently macho for them (Rangers being an elite US army regiment), and sufficiently British-football-culture-sounding for me!

In the local league there were a lot of expatriate coaches because most US dads and soccer mums at that time were still clueless about the offside rule, in-swinging corners, and parking the bus, etc. In the Cup competition that year we won our semi-final against the local team that had a Brazilian expat coach but lost in the Final to the team with a German expat coach!

Several other major events happened in quick succession. I toyed with my own business in California, whilst Wife One and I went through a divorce. My dad, then in his eighties, lost his second wife, and was alone in the UK with mild dementia so I brought him over to California. However, after we investigated how much it would cost to have him covered for medical insurance long term we debated for a while but then decided, more than two decades ago now, to return home to the UK and the safety net of the NHS.

My son stayed in the States, still lives there and video-calls me from North Carolina. My daughter returned with me and my dad back to the UK, and we lived for a while in Lytham St Annes. Back home I took up a position in procurement and operations management with an American firm on the fringes of the energy business in the UK.

The decision to return home to the North-West of England was the best decision I have ever made. I finally met the love of my life, Ann, a wonderful Lancashire lass and multi-talented shoe designer. We married in the Ribble Valley, lived, initially outside Lancaster and now are very happy in Goosnargh, a village in the countryside outside Preston.

As well as my first son and daughter I also have two fully grown step kids, and three delightful grandkids, aged 3, 4 and 5, and they keep us busy.

The End of the Outward-Bound adventure.…except when Ann and I spend the occasional January as Florida snowbirds. On one occasion we had just arrived at our American friend’s house near Cape Kennedy when he dragged us a couple of blocks to the beach just in time to view the night launch of a NASA rocket heading for outer space.

In late spring we sometimes visit a little beach cottage in Assos, on the Greek Island of Kefalonia. Here we both still love snorkelling, although my spear fishing days are over.

We visit other little cottages, but more often these days in the UK, especially the Western Highlands of Scotland or the North-East of England.

It’s good to be home in the Northwest – the best part, of the best country in the world.

Thinking back, the education I received through Barrow Grammar was outstanding and contributed to an excellent preparation for being Outward Bound in the wider world.

 

 

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