A GIANT AMONG MEN …

Born in 1934 into abject poverty in Toxteth, Liverpool, Terence Hagan was the oldest of eight children. His mother, Kitty, had already lost her first child and another died after she gave birth to Terry. His early family life reads like a chapter from the best-selling memoir, Angela’s Ashes. Tragedy was always just a whisper away.

Unable to cope with the grinding hardship, Kitty abandoned the family when Terry was ten and his distant and authoritarian father, Hugh, soon put up their baby brother for adoption. A decade or so later another of the siblings would disappear off the face of the earth; never to be seen again.

Terry would look out for his remaining siblings - a responsibility which stayed with him until his senior years. His only sister once told me how his support got her through unimaginably bleak times. Despite the tough start, not once did he complain about a childhood where malnourishment was the only certainty. Where him and his siblings would regularly pick up and eat the ‘seconds and thirds’ of other people’s apple cores off the street.

Indeed, being a true scouser with a gallows humour, he was more prone to poking fun. “We were so poor,” he’d regularly tell his five beloved grandchildren, “that the pigeons fed us.” He never forgot his roots. The RAF gave him three glorious square meals a day, a smart uniform including his first ever pair of new shoes which “didn’t have holes in them.” There, he was trained as a physical training instructor and parachutist (in which he also discovered a talent for basketball). Once stationed in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, he met his soulmate Patricia after a chance meeting on the phone (she worked for the Prudential insurance out there, and he needed a quote). After a whirlwind romance they married and back in the UK he earned a degree as a mature student and became a youth worker and later sociology teacher.

Terry devoted much of his working and personal life to helping young people from low-income families. Having moved to the east, he took over the youth club in Ipswich’s Chantry estate. He arrived there in 1979 when only a handful of white kids frequented it.

Never one to ignore injustice, Terry fought for those without a voice, no matter what their colour or background. Several times standing as a character witness in court for young people who’d been let down by a prejudiced system.

Slowly but surely, he turned the youth club into a mecca for young people from all walks of life - it went on to spawn a successful roller hockey team as well as a fabulous basketball court which he fought tooth and nail to get built. The local kids still use it.

Walking through Ipswich with my retired dad was often like shopping with a celebrity which was strange considering I’d gone on to a job on a national newspaper in which I interviewed ‘real’ celebrities for a living. People would stop him smiling, their arm outstretched ready to shake his hand as they told me; “Your dad was one of the few people back then who really believed in me. He’s a legend.” All those famous people I’d interviewed - from Hollywood A listers, pop stars to politicians - they didn’t have a patch on my dad.

Howard Goulbourne, pictured top right in the roller hockey photo, told us: “To many of us at Chantry Youth Club, Terry was a great role model ... he was like a second father and is truly missed.”

By the age of 82 and with two dodgy knees, he was still teaching basketballfor free - to children in Chantry. I remember one such session where a somewhat challenging child sheepishly thanked Terry for providing a safe, nurturing space in which he could just burn off energy like an ordinary child. I later found out that the child’s parent was in prison for a serious crime - his home life wasn’t easy.

Terry was just 5ft 6ins tall but, to us, he stood a giant among men.

He was never motivated nor seduced by money which, as I get older, have realised is about as rare as hen’s teeth! He taught his three daughters everything, from swimming, to driving, to arguing their corner and believing we stood equal in an unequal world.

Amidst the stories of endless greed and corruption which scream out of every headline nowadays, we long with all our hearts to still have him here, challenging the great injustices of our times (which only seem to get greater). We’d even put up with the terrible jokes.” l Did you or do you have an amazing relative? Write in with your story to: info@livinginsuffolk.com