Then he left Lancashire and emigrated to New Zealand in January 1968. After a couple of jobs when he arrived in New Zealand, he joined the Electricity Division, Ministry of Energy, 17 years after leaving school and found his niche.
His "dream job" was working as an operator, "driving" the Waitaki dam.
His generation background started in the North Island, then he saw an opening for an operator at Aviemore dam.
After two years, he moved to Waitaki dam and stayed for more than 28 years until the control of all the Waitaki dams was centralised at Twizel.
On December 23, 1998, at 7am Mr Winward finished his shift and his job, and is now spending his retirement at Otematata.
At Waitaki dam, he was a shift operator - "the best job in NZE [New Zealand Electricity]".
He was the person who controlled the generation and monitored the water flow, at no more than 30cumecs variation an hour (equivalent to 5MW generation), to maintain the river.
Guided by system control in Christchurch, each of the dams along the Waitaki River was operated by shifts of operators.
When Mr Winward started, there were three per shift and three shifts a day, worked on rotation.
The number 1 shift was from midnight to 8am, number 2 from 8am to 4pm and number three from 4pm to midnight.
Mr Winward loved the job, the decision-making and control.
Part of that was being responsible for ensuring the right amount of electricity was generated at the right time.
"About 7pm at night in winter, the voltage would drop when the water-heating ripple controls switched back on," he said.
At midnight the voltage would increase as power usage dropped.
Along with all other shift operators on power schemes throughout New Zealand, he was responsible for covering that, along with times when they were notified of machine maintenance or other reductions in generation.
When Mr Windward started at Waitaki dam, the control of the power station was completely manual. Now it is computer-controlled from Twizel.
Each shift had a shift operator, station operator and powerhouse attendant.
As more of the jobs were centralised, the shift was reduced to two and then a single person - the shift operator.
"I loved it. I never got lonely, although the operator at Benmore did and often phoned for a chat," he said.
The only downside was inspecting the galleries.
At almost 2m tall, wearing a hard hat to avoid the spikes of reinforcing steel sticking out of the roof, he had to stoop, which was not good for his back.
