Upon leaving school, he had started his professional life as an electrician, meeting his future wife Margaret at the one firm he worked for in that capacity, Head Wrightson Ltd, which operated from Thornaby at the time.Head Wrightson , engineers, previously of Thornaby: mentioned in University of Durham Press Release, dur.ac.uk; accessed 12 November 2014. They married on 11 March 1961, and by 1973 had moved to the farm in Cockfield, County Durham, which was run by Margaret's father. He and Margaret then took a full role in the running of the farm. In time, they renamed the farmhouse "Law One".
