John Frederick Riley (1914-2005)

John Frederick, also known as Jack, was the second child of Edwin William Riley and Emily James. He settled into a career in insurance, becoming manager of the Co-Operative Insurance Society in Eastbourne from 1963 to 1978. He enjoyed the arts, photography and gardening.

In 1998, with health issues creating an uncertain future, John set about writing his autobiography, This Is My Life, for the purpose of recording the family tree. As the work took shape, it soon went beyond identifying family members and expanded to record an eventful life. Through his recollections and, by his own admission, a catalogue of visits, John traces the highs and the lows of the past. It can be download by clicking the link below.

In 2005, John died at the age of 91. He remains one of the longest living members of the Riley family.

Extracts

This is My Life

As uninteresting as it seems to have been, it is the only one I had!
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I have no memory of World War I and my earliest memories are of going to a Church of England school, Holy Trinity, Lutheran Place, Tulse Hill, London, at the age of five. I must have been impervious to any religious teaching we may have been given, as, like my father, I have been an atheist all my life. I remained at that school until the age of 11, reaching the top class, which was normally attained at the age of 14, and then, succeeding in the selection examination taken by all children between 10 and 11 years, I went to a school named “The Reay”, after an earlier Minister of education, until I was 16. My best subjects were mathematics and chemistry, and I obtained ‘distinctions’ in these in the Oxford local examinations, with ‘credits’ in English essay. I failed at the other English papers and in French scraped through with a bare pass. Accountancy was also a subject I enjoyed and in which I obtained a ‘distinction’. At the age of 15, I was able to produce a complete set of accounts up to and including a balance sheet.
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