It's a little known fact that between 1950 and 1959 there were no winters no darkness no rain and it was never cold. It was one long hot barmy summers day and we reveled in it.We had friends that were real flesh and blood and the only way to talk to them was to meet them face to face.We could spend hours on the street corner under the lamp just chatting and playing games. Games that we made up on the spot .We were cowboys and indians,British or German soldiers, knights in armour anything we wanted to be .The world was our oyster.And it wasn't a virtual world. We would go off for days at a time across the fields.Climbing trees flattening the farmers crop by rolling around in the corn and destroying the indigenous wildlife's habitat pulling out great chunks of hedgerow to use as rifles, spears ,bows and arrows whatever the weapon of choice was.We only went home when we were hungry or our shoes wore out, which ever came first.Every day was an adventure.A glorious exciting adventure.And then it started to snow.

By today's standards our family would have been considered weird.Neither of my parents had been married before,they were married to each other and they stayed that way until death did them part.My two sisters and i all shared the same surname and the same parents.That's enough to get a kid bullied in these modern times just for being different, although it all seemed quite normal at the time
When i reached the ripe old age of seven we left auntie Elsi and friends and moved to a three bedroom council house with an outside loo.The toilet was actually in the house but the door to it was outside next to the back door.This glaring design fault was rectified some years later when the men from the council arrived, bricked up the doorway and knocked down the wall between the loo and the bathroom, hey presto modern suburban living ,inside amenities.It had taken since the nineteen thirties for someone to come up with that idea which is not surprising when you consider that most of the council were related to locally sourced seasonal vegetables.I now had a bedroom of my own and my parents had their privacy back.Still no younger brothers or sisters though.

Until the age of seven i lived in the house in Paradise road where i was born. It was a three bedroom house which was shared by my parents, my two older sisters Wendy and Susan, myself, auntie Elsi, her friend Mrs Coldis and Mrs Coldis son Paul. God knows where everyone slept but  I do know that my bed was at the end of my parents bed so i assume thats why i don't have any younger brothers or sisters. Paul i'm told was a police photographer although i don't recall seeing any photos of policemen about the house.He did however introduce us to home movies.He gathered everyone around a small screen in auntie Elsi,s downstairs room and showed us a film of the Great Wall of China. This was to become the first of many sights(the great wall of China that is) that over the years i would never get visit, but trust me there have been a lot more since.,

For me it all started on the 24th of October 1947when i was dragged kicking struggling and fighting for air from my mothers pain racked body. (Rather like a drunken teenager being thrown out of a nightclub on a saturday night.) I was held upside down and slapped.I screamed opened my eyes and was blinded by the light(in much the same way that mannfred manns earth band were to be some twenty odd years later).
I had arrived and i hit the ground running, running way to fast as it turned out because i've suddenly found my self here, a nearly 63 year old retired puplican, postman, milkman, factory worker and for a brief moment a wharehouse man. i move very slowly these days in an attempt to save what little time i have left ,also i now have a pain racked body , Rather like the one my poor mother had back in 1947 but not in the same places. My intention is to fill in the gap between then and now and hopefully keep myself and anybody else who maybe out there amused.