WHEN last week I printed a photograph of gymnasts from Bolton Lads' Club in 1933, with the English Team Championship Shield, little did I think that I would necessarily get a response.

But I did! First was Mrs Jean Haynes, of Inverlael Avenue, Bolton, who tells me that the instructor shown, E. Aspinall, was her mother's uncle ("Uncle Ned to us"), my grandad's brother.

"He was a great gymnast, and spent a lot of time at the Lads' Club," she says. "He was also a teacher at the County Grammar School, and represented the country at the Olympics. He was proud to show us his medals.

"My mother's brother, also E. Aspinall (and our Uncle Ted) was also a great athlete, mainly football, and was well known as Mill Manager at Greenhalgh and Shaw, and in the Halliwell area.

"In the 1930s he travelled to New York with the Lancashire Cotton Board, and later received the CBE for his work in cotton.

"He told us that on the ship to New York was Winston Churchill. Uncle Ted had dinner with him, and Churchill greeted him with the words 'so you're the poor lad from Bolton'.

"Both Uncle Ned and Uncle Ted married, but had no children."

Another relative of instructor E. Aspinall (the Ned in the letter above so you don't get confused!), is Mrs M. Higginson, of Alexander Road, Tonge Park, Bolton. "Ted married my grandmother," she tells me. "Both were getting on in life, but were very fit for their years. Ted could do handstands well into his 80s.

"As far as I can remember, he led the gymnastic team to the Olympic Games sometime in the 30s, and won a medal. He was also PE teacher at Rivington and Blackrod Grammar School for quite a long time.

"He died in his 90th year, of old age, despite smoking at least 20 Capstan full strength a day."

Then came a letter from Mr Jack Sinclair, of Rawson Road, Bolton, who feels "pretty certain" that the W. Walsh on the photograph is "the same W. (Bill) Walsh who worked, and took the physical training classes, for the apprentices at Dobson and Barlow's during my time there as an apprentice fitter, 1948/53."

The E. Aspinall mentioned was, in fact, Edmund Aspinall, who lived in Devonshire Road, Bolton, and who died in 1975.

He took part in the 1908 Olympics in London in the British gymnast team, and then became a coach and instructor. He was particularly successful with teams from Bolton Lads' Club, and got two Bolton gymnasts into the British team for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. - LG