He was a miner in St helens, Lancashire. The family tale is that he was sold to his adoptive family when he was a baby in the snug of The Ship Inn, Parr. When he started singing, we always reckoned they probably got nineteen and sixpence change.

They kept on good terms with the tinker family though. But really my name should be Travers or Travis - the name of the tinker family. Peoples affairs seem to have been mixed up in those days.