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A photo of Norman Dallas Oldknow appears in the story in the Singleton Argus of 7 November 2014.

Norman Dallas Oldknow was inducted into the Singleton NSW Hall of Fame for his years of Community Service.
The following article is reproduced from the Singleton Argus of 7 November 2014.

NORMAN Dallas Oldknow, affectionately known as “Esky”, dedicated his life to giving back to the Singleton community.
That’s the sentiment of his nominator for the 2014 Singleton Wambo Hall of Fame awards, Gary Holland.
Esky, nicknamed after the rank of Esquire in the church, served in the Australian Army in World War II and was a prisoner of war in Burma for four years before he returned to Singleton.
After a long period of healing from the mental scars of war, he saw the need to establish a branch of the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS), which he started at the St Luke’s Hall in 1956.
It would continue to be an outlet for young people for three decades.
Talking to The Argus about Esky and the youth organisation CEBS brought back fond memories of bike rides, camping, sporting contests and end of year road trips around Australia for Gary.
“We loved everything about it,” he said.
When Gary started researching Esky for the Hall of Fame application, he was overwhelmed with positive responses from social media by some of the former CEBS members.
“It showed it was all about the camaraderie that we shared as boys still exists today,” he said.
“We had the utmost respect for Esky and so did the community.”
Gary said CEBS was Esky’s life and with his right-hand man Colin Moore, they provided a service for Singleton’s youth that wasn’t available anywhere else.
“There were CEBS elsewhere but Singleton’s chapter was really unique and was open 52 weeks of the year.”
CEBS wasn’t just outdoor fun, it was also active in the community participating in the Anzac march, helping local farmers, selling legacy badges on Legacy Day and helping out the local parish.
A highlight for the boys was the end of year holiday road trip around locations all over Australia, organised by Esky for a cost of only 10 pounds, which was often waived for some boys if they could not afford it.
“It opened up a whole new world for us because most families didn’t go on holidays back then,” Gary said.
“We went through the Snowy Mountains, Wollongong and Canberra sitting in the back of Esky’s 1969-70 Daihatsu 1-tonne truck setting up stretchers in the local churches wherever we went.”
The popularity of CEBS was evident in how it grew from the original 10 or so boys into the 100s, becoming so large that activities had to be spread out over two nights, Thursday and Friday.
And no boy was ever excluded from CEBS based on their religious beliefs or otherwise.
Thanks to fundraising and a lot of Esky’s own personal finances, the boys got to enjoy sports and activities such as gymnastics or sailing which they wouldn’t experience anywhere in town.

Norman 'Esky" Oldknow
Local people from town also got on board with what Esky was trying to do with CEBS and would offer their time by running classes on subjects as diverse first aid and playing the mouth organ.
Gary said Esky was always available and was never too busy.
“He invested time and energy into CEBS and afforded a lot of boys a great childhood,” he said.

Source: Singleton Argus 7 November 2014