Uncle Nobby. Where do you start when you are writing about a legend ?
It is true that most of the children in his home town are scarred of him - mainly due to stories their parents may have told them to stop them staying out too late at night - but they also admire him.

I decided to go back to the sleepy village in Essex where Uncle was born and maybe look up some of his old school Teachers. He doesn’t talk about his youth much (I put this down to the fact that he probably can’t remember it) but I was sure one of his old teachers could tell us a few stories. After several phone calls I managed to find one that was still alive and arranged to meet his Chemistry teacher, Mr Gnalps (with a silent ‘g’ & ‘l’), the next day.

"Oh yeah, Dave Frampton, I remember him well." he pauses whilst swigging from probably the largest hip flask I have ever seen, "We were old drinking partners you see. You know, at only 14 he could drink 6 pints of lager and still climb the rope in P.E. Mind you, he broke his legs twice coming down. I lost touch with him after the Court case mind - I was caught in a public toilet with another one of my pupils. They still can’t prove anything though - I thought he was 18, and a girl." I decided I’d got all the information I could at this point, and signalled the wardens to take him back to the home.

Looking around at the desks in his old classroom I could still see "Frampo was ‘ere" carved on the underside of his desk. I later asked Uncle why he chose not to carve onto the top of the desk where people could see it, but he just replied that he spent most of the lesson lying flat on his back under the table "so it just seemed like the place to do it!".