Initials surprise for Jeff
TWO men and the rare number plate that prompted an unusual deal have been brought together again for only the second time in more than half a century.
Councillor Jeff Tildesley, from North Cornelly, has spent more than 50 years driving cars with a number plate sporting his initials, JHT, after he bought it as a present to himself for his 21st birthday.
He had obtained it in the spring of 1965 from steel worker Jack Godwyn after he spotted Jack’s car sporting the number plate as Jack drove into work at British Steel in Port Talbot.
Jeff followed him and offered to buy the number plate.
The following day when Jeff went to meet Jack and his wife at their house in Heol Degum, North Cornelly, they told Jeff he could have the number plate which reads 35 JHT for free on condition that he never sold it.
Jeff – who was delighted with his find having conducted a fruitless coun- trywide search for such a plate – kept to his word.
But he never saw Jack again until a chance meeting, which Jeff drove to in his Rover which sports the 35 JHT plate.
The 73-year-old councillor was visiting Morgana Care Home in South Cornelly with Mayor Reg Jenkins to congratulate a resident on her 100th birthday when he noticed a familiar face in the corner.
Jeff said: “I asked a member of staff who confirmed the gentleman in the wheelchair was in fact Jack. I was amazed that he remembered it all as clear as day after all these years. He is of such sound mind and exactly as I remember him.”
A spokesman for Morgana Care Home said Jack, now 93, is such a kind, lovely and generous man that the story of what he had done over 50 years ago did not surprise the staff at all.
“Jack is a delightful man. He is the salt of the earth and is still as lovely as he always has been. He was over the moon to have met Jeff again after all these years,” said the spokesman.