Brian Winstanley

I can’t remember when I first knew Brian. I got to know Janet when I joined the Committee in October 2011, and would probably have met Brian, first, on club holidays, and then on the joint SCoM / Lake District Ski Club December Val d’Isere holiday, which I was invited to join in December 2015, and with only one exception (discounting the Covid year when skiing was cancelled) I have been on it ever since.

Brian was a fund of many fascinating and amusing anecdotes, from a long life starting before the war in Manchester. They ranged from his mother telling off his father for teaching him, at a very young ago, how to wring a chicken’s neck, to his work as an electrician, and his experiences of getting mains voltage shocks (which I know from personal experience are quite memorable). Brian also seemed to be the unofficial electrician to the Ski Club of Manchester, assisting many members with their wiring problems and conundrums. I have heard many of the tales many times, but he still regularly came up with entertaining ones I had never heard before. Honestly, he could talk for Britain.

Brian was a fund of many fascinating and amusing anecdotes, from a long life starting before the war in Manchester. They ranged from his mother telling off his father for teaching him, at a very young ago, how to wring a chicken’s neck, to his work as an electrician, and his experiences of getting mains voltage shocks (which I know from personal experience are quite memorable). Brian also seemed to be the unofficial electrician to the Ski Club of Manchester, assisting many members with their wiring problems and conundrums. I have heard many of the tales many times, but he still regularly came up with entertaining ones I had never heard before. Honestly, he could talk for Britain.

My last long cycle ride with Brian was on 6th April this year, when we rode over Barton Moss to the Astley Mining Museum, which has the largest winding engine ever used in the Lancashire coalfield. The engine, a truly magnificent engineering marvel, is run on the last Sunday of every month and so we resolved to go back one day and see it running, but we never managed it

Andrew WAlker