After leaving school he worked as an apprentice with Lacon's Brewery cleaning the pumps.
He then went into drifting aboard the Rose Bay and joined the lifeboat crew under coxswain Jack Plummer, of Plummers dentists.
A spell in the Merchant Navy saw him working mostly in UK waters before returning to Caister where he had a fish and chip shop in Tan Lane.
People would queue round the block in those days, Mr Thurlow said, while he and his mates would cause havoc loosening the salt shaker tops and generally larking about - japes that would often result in him feeling the toe of Billy's boot.