Frank Cowburn - Deceased 1st January 2012

On Monday morning the 16th January 2012 the Church of St Michaels in Croston was packed with family and friends to pay tribute at the funeral and celebration of the life of Frank Cowburn.

Frank was friend to all he met and amongst the Leyland Group was very much 'our man', especially as an Assistant Provincial Grand Master in the Craft.

The service was led by Rev Graham Halsall and during the service a eulogy was delivered by Alan Baldwin a close friend of Frank, and I make no apology for producing it in its entirety below and I thank Alan for his assistance. Mike Beesley

What and who was Frank?
Well he was no ordinary man in everything he did. He was a family man, father to Stuart and Russell, Brother, Grandfather, Great Grandfather and a friend of thousands.
He used to say “ I wouldn’t mind living until I was ninety, and the being shot by a jealous husband”
Well he lived to 97 and died peacefully, he had not enjoyed the best of health over the past few years but he had enjoyed over 90 years of a life we can only admire with a gratitude that we knew him and shared part of it with him.

It is doubtful if there is a public house within a 25 mile radius Frank has no been in, no make that 50.
I was introduced to Frank in 1958 by his brother-in-law Jimmy Ellison
Frank had just bought into a tool shop in Meadow St Preston, sons Stuart and Russell were just leaving school and about to join him in the business.
A friendship with the family developed and continues to this day and as a result I have spent many hours in Franks company. in the course of which I picked-up some snippets of his life history.

Frank, was born in 1914, at the beginning of the first world war, in the Seven Stars area of Leyland, these were hard times. This area was then a Hamlet in it’s own right and Franks father had a barbers shop, come bike shop, come “Camping” shop, where locals gathered gossiping and relating stories etc.
He had a brother Harold and sisters May and Nora. All were skilled at cutting hair and shaving at an early age and in fact Frank always shaved with a cut-throat razor right into his seventies
He related that as a toddler he contacted an illness which required his admission to an Isolation hospital, and being transported in a two-wheel horse drawn buggy ambulance to Heath Charnock Hospital, which was between Chorley and Horwich some 10/12 miles away.
He was in for six weeks or so, during which time, his mother was allowed to visit once a week, and then only to stand at the gates and him being allowed to wave to her through the window
He related going to the Preston Guild, by bus, which would be 1922 and being allowed to sit up by the engine with the cover panel off for warmth.
He was brought up in the hard times of the twenties and thirties.
He worked in the Service Department at Leyland Motors in the thirties where his cousin Ronnie worked in the wages department. Frank was a member of the territorial army, as a result of this, he was called up at the outbreak of war in 1939 into the RASC.
He met and courted an assistant from the chemists in Leyland. A Sadie, Nellie Thompson and the they married in 1939 also she was afterwards better known as Blossom
He survived Dunkirk and served the whole war until 1945 at various locations and camps, including a spell in Iceland He held the Rank of acting major on his demob.

He never related much about the War years other than when “He shot the Cook” which was an accident in the mess and proved to be a minor flesh wound, but earned the comment of the commanding officer that he did not think much of his cooking either, and also being responsible for salvaging a boat load of pig-iron from a boat beached on a remote beach in Iceland for which he got a commendation, no ordinary feat.

He was active in other areas during the War Years, He was initiated passed and raised into Freemasonry in uniform as Captain Frank Cowburn at three Emergency meetings Like everything about Frank he wasn’t an ordinary mason. He became a very high ranking well respected mason.
His cousin Ronnie used to joke about his title of “Captain Cowburn”
He always said he’s “Our Frank” to me.
His sons Stuart and Russell were both born in that wartime period
After the war he became the buyer at Ribble Motors in Preston and in due course Ribble bought out Scout Motors, which was owned by a Mr Watkinson who, somehow persuaded Frank to go in partnership with him in purchasing a small tool shop Speedwell tools in Meadow St and so C&W Speedy tools was created and he made the transition from buyer to seller, Stuart and Russell joined him straight from school.

He never ceased to amaze us his after dinner speeches, his ability to tell jokes and stories are legendary
no doubt he learned a lot from the banter and talk in his fathers shop.
We knew the jokes, we should do, having heard them so many times, although, we always laughed because it was the way he told them.
Wherever he went he was expected to say a few words, whether it be Masonic functions, weddings, parties social occasions and funerals.
Among my many recollections of him are, shaving with a cut-throat razor, every morning
We spent time with him on holidays and at lake Coniston . When he was 65
We celebrated it at the Sun Hotel, this would be August 1979, and the day after Frank, Stuart, Russell and two other young men swam across the lake, I followed in a boat, in case, but, Frank swam back with them no ordinary 65 year old. O A P.

At Coniston we regularly had barbecues and swam on the beach and Frank would invariably entertain us or have a hair cutting session sometimes both. Frank always had his hair cutting tackle available.
He took advantage of adversity when on being banned from driving, he bought a bike, fitted it with a milometer and ran a charity sweepstake on the mileage he rode, and if I remember rightly sold the bike by auction, the proceeds going towards the New Masonic Hall costs.

Everyone has a memory of Frank, I have a 50 year one in which time I have never seen him lose his temper, he must have, but he did not show it. I know from Stuart and Russell he could be a disciplinarian and although they were his sons and worked with him, He was The Boss.
Having said that, he was their best mate and most times more of a mate than a father.
Never an ordinary man but an extraordinary man who lived an extra ordinary long life.
We won’t see his like again. Alan Baldwin