Till The Day I Die

About the Book

The book plots the life of a working class boy brought up on the dockside in Preston Lancashire in 1949 and who worked as a Youth In Training for the telephone department in the GPO.

Initially wanting to be a professional footballer and playing for Bury & Blackpool Tony settled for playing part time for Fleetwood Town, Netherfield, Darwen and Accrington Stanley as well as England GPO in the Post Office European Cup in Oslo.

Following a few years working on engineering work Tony got involved in trade union activities for the Post Office Engineering Union along with joining a number of Political Parties.

The book is a humorous but factual attempt to highlight the amusing stories that becoming a trade union activist had to deal with, firstly in the old civil service environment and then after the company was privatised by the Thatcher Government in the 1980s.

The various accounts tell of the union members who got into difficulties, managers who were difficult to deal with and of course the good times that were had making long term friendships and relationships.

By taking notes of every meeting and collecting books, reams of papers relating to the events covered, the stories are all true and unbelievably did happen.

Who would have thought a strike was fun? Who would have thought representing people in difficulty was fun? Who would have thought union meetings were fun? Read the book and you may just change your mind.

The book is about giving people a laugh that does not exist as much in workplaces in these competitive days and hopefully this book will give happy memories to some people and highlight to others that being a trade union activist in the 1980s 90s and the new millenium was fun as well as being rewarding.

About the Author

Tony Monks was born on 31st July 1949 in Preston Lancashire and has lived in the city ever since. His parents were working class folk with his father a steam engine driver on Preston Docks and mother a clerical worker for a number of local companies.

Tony's first love was football and played in the junior teams at Bury and Blackpool before playing semi professional football for Fleetwood Town, Netherfield, Clitheroe, Lytham, Darwen & Accrington Stanley amongst other local teams.

After joining the GPO at 16 years of age Tony played for the England GPO team in the Post Office European Cup played in Oslo.

After working as a telephone engineer in the various exchanges in Lancashire Tony became a full time union official for the Post Office Engineering Union (POEU) then to become the National Communications Union (NCU) and finally merging with the Postal Union to become the Communication Workers Union (CWU).

For over 35 years Tony represented the local members in Preston and the North West as well as becoming a Regional Officer and followed this up by becoming an officer of a number of national committees which included the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) dealing with the unions annual conferences.

Tony retired from work in 2006 and was awarded the unions Gold Badge by his Branch, Regional Honorary Membership by the North West Region and finally National Honorary Membership of the CWU by the National Executive Committee.

All in all a very rewarding career for a lad from the dockside.