When the list of the 60 teenagers selected to be Wimbledon ball boys went up in their Barnardo's children's home, it opened up a fortnight of unexpected opportunities.
Winston Norton has none of his memorabilia from his years as a Wimbledon ball boy - sweatbands and programmes proved a valuable currency when bartering for cigarettes back at the children's home.
After three gruelling months of training, a mob of boys would crowd round, straining to see if they had made the cut. The boys were known by numbers; Norton was 217. The only chance he and his classmates had to see the outside world - beyond twice yearly trips back to see their parents - was a shopping or cinema trip to nearby Hertford for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon.
"Everybody was looking at the noticeboard to see if they'd been selected - and that caused a few tears for some and delight for others," Hill tells BBC Sport. "If you got selected, you could walk with your head up, you know. 'I'm going to be a ball boy.'" "We gave the money to our parents, which was a nice thing to do and to have the opportunity to do that was such a privilege," he said."People who were leaving used to put their used tickets in boxes and one of our jobs was to go and empty these boxes with a key and take them back as there were queues of people who were trying to get in for the last couple of hours," says Norton, 79.
Being at Wimbledon also presented an opportunity for Hill's family to catch a rare glimpse of him on television - an extra reason to try to get on to the main courts, Centre Court or Court One, where the cameras focused most of their attention. Hill says: "He knew the television cameras were following him towards me and I would actually get on television. And, of course, I'm giving it all: 'Yeah, yeah that will be fine, that will be great, but it's up to you whether you take a chance with a broken string.'"
"They gave me and another ball boy a racquet and they let us have a knock-up with them, which was an unforgettable experience," he says.Wimbledon's ball boys attend a morning briefing at the All England Club in 1960 Ball boys were under strict orders not to move during play, but what do you do if the ball is coming at you at 120mph?
"It showed me there was another world out there apart from Goldings. When I was at Goldings, I depended on charity - seeing all these people comfortably off with their nice clothes and eating their strawberries - I saw there was more to it than Goldings.
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