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I was born on December 12th 1940 at 74 Heathway, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham in the middle of a German air raid with an anti aircraft gun firing in the field behind our house. Dr Savage who delivered me said that with the noise of the gun and the bombs exploding around us that my ear drums I would probably be stone deaf. Dr Savage was wrong in his prediction although I have suffered hearing loss in later life.

My father was a fitter in a reserved occupation on war work so did not serve in the armed forces but after he finished work each day he would report to his home guard unit who manned one of those anti aircraft guns that threatened my hearing. Dad's hearing was affected and he later received a war pension because of his hearing loss.

I can not remember the bombing but my earliest recollection of the war years was Victory in Europe day on 7th May 1945 when everyone was suddenly very happy and tables were set up down the middle of the road and we had a big street party.

It must have been shortly after VE day when I fell off our garage roof and was rushed into Birmingham Childrens Hospital with concussion where they found I had a burst appendix and that peritonitis had set in and my life was in danger. Then I caught dysentery which can also have fatal consequences and was rushed across the city with the ambulance bell ringing to Bromsgrove Isolation Hospital.

I remember it was a very hot summer that year and I was in a room with another patient about my age. We wore green gowns and to try and cheer me up he bent down at the end of my bed, lifted his gown and bared his bum which started me laughing so much that I burst the stitches from my appendix operation!

My illness meant I was off school for a year and my parents sent me away for convalescence with my Aunty Hilda and family who lived at Barmouth in Wales. It was my first introduction to mountain scenery which I loved and which continued into adult life.

On my return to Stetchford Road Primary School half way through the school curriculum I had no chance of continuing my education so they gave me the job of milk boy. Together with other classified dimwits we used to distribute the daily milk to all the classrooms then in the afternoon collect the empty bottles. There were always plenty of full bottles left which we drank and I put my healthy teeth down to all that milk drinking!

I must have been about seven or eight before I tasted my first ice cream which was a Midland Counties vanilla flavour and I thought all my Chritmasses had come at once. We were of course deprived of such luxury during the war years but I enjoyed 'degg' which was my name for dried egg which I used to eat from the tin. Mum sometimes used to make a tray of batter sprinkled with sugar for pudding.
I now had a sister and the family all had our first summer holiday together in Dartmouth, Devon.

Bob-a-Job Week

I can certainly remember my first bob-a-job week in 1949. My mother told me that my grandmother would give me a shilling for a bucket of horse manure so she got me up early one morning to meet the milkman's horse and cart at the bottom of the road and follow it until the horse had dumped a load!

I had to beat the next door neighbour to it who was Mrs Shovel but pronounced her name as 'Shovelle' a bit like the TV character Mrs Bucket (Mrs Bouquet). I then had to carry it about 1.5 miles to Grandma Fox's house and my arms were nearly hanging off by the time I arrived.

Unfortunately the horse shite had shrunk while I walked as all the moisture drained to the bottom of the bucket which was then only half full so my Grandma only gave me sixpence. My Mum gave my Grandma a piece of her mind and gave me the sixpence I was short!

Musical Education

My parents were interested in classical music and we often went to concerts in Birmingham Town Hall. The music often seemed to affect me emotionally to the extent that I was sometimes physically sick after the concert.
My Dad had a good tenor voice and often sang operatic arias while he was shaving so I had a good grounding the the classics and perhaps because of my emotional reaction to the music, Mum was convinced I was going to be some sort of musical genius!

I was sent to piano lessons from the age of about seven and learnt to play many classical pieces in addition to studying for the LRAM as far as transitional grade three standard but my pianistic ability was well in excess of that. I was just bone idle when it came to the theory.

Needless to say we did not win the competition! The family moved down to Somerset later and my new piano teacher was also my housemaster at secondary school who eventually told me that he could not teach me any more.

Before we move South I had graduated to the Boy Scouts at the age of ten and after the move joined a Bridgwater troop run by Skipper Green. In the summer we used to meet in a field rather than in a school hall which I had been used to and I continued my membership right into my adult life.

We move to North Petherton

Dad used to cycle to work every day but he eventually began to fall off his bike and was diagnosed with Ménière's disease. This is a condition of the inner ear which affects your balance and he was advised to relocate to an area where there was less pollution so my parents decided to move to Somerset.

They bought a house in North Petherton and I first went to the village school there. What with my loss of a years education and then moving to a completely different school I failed to pass the 11 plus exam so found myself at Westonzoyland Secondary Modern where pupils were bussed from all over that part of Somerset.

Our neighbours were the Coram's and Mr Coram was an agricultural contractor. I used to knock about with his son who was the same age and was often invited round for tea. They had a smallholding where the various machinery was kept and tea was always home baked bread, jam and clotted cream which to someone from a wartime city was an indescribable luxury.

In the summer holidays the pair of us used to join Mr Coram on his combine harvester to cut the crops of the surrounding farms. At lunchtime we would eat that fresh bread with Cheddar cheese washed down with a flagon of sweet cider the farmer would sometimes bring out to us. Then as the final cut began we would catch the rabbits as they escaped from the corn which we would have for our supper.

I enjoyed my time at Westonzoyland secondary school. I was in the school cricket and football teams and travelled to other Somerset schools for competetive games. The school was situated in the old RAF buildings on the WWII aerodrome so we had all their sports facilities plus extensive gardens where we were taught horticulture.
The school had a large hall with a working stage and I remember singing in a production of Edward Germans 'Merrie England'.

My housemaster happened to also live in North Petherton and was also my piano teacher and took an interest in my education. I was lazy at school and my reports always said "could do better" but he convinced me I could and so managed to pass my 13 plus exam and chose to attend Bridgwater Technical Institute from the other options of Dr Morgans Grammar or Brymore Agricultural College.

I joined the North Petherton Parish Church of St Mary choir and eventually became the head choirboy. Vicar Addy used to bore us rigid with great long sermons but I also persuaded my Dad to join the choir. The church organist gave me a few lessons playing the organ but before I could become proficient my parents decided to up and move house again but not before I hade been confirmed into the Church of England by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, a religion I have since abandonned.

I began to take an interest in Rugby Union and the field we played on in those days was populated by cows during the week. The result was I would arrive home smelling unpleasant after being compressed under a ruck with a cow turd! Everyone then supported Bath Rugby Club and I was no exeption, an interest that has survived to this day.

I began to take an interest in girls or they may have started to take an interest in me as I do remember having several girl friends in the village. I remember falling madly in love at School with Josephine Edmunds but was too shy to approach her. She lived at Ashcott, about 14 miles from Petherton but I used to cycle over there at weekends and wander around Ashcott in the hope of meeting up with her but never did.

We move to Keenthorne

My parents bought a guest house in the hamlet of Keenthorne situated on the main A39 road between Cannington and Nether Stowey. It consisted of a garage, a pub and a few cottages.
The pub made it's own cider who occasionally employed me to help during the cider making season.

My parents business was called Braemar Guest House. It had an outside toilet which was situated up a flight of steps outside the back door of the cottage. The toilet was connected to a septic tank down the garden which occasionally used to fill up during heavy rain when the toilet used to overflow and unpleasant items used to flow down the steps. My Dad's blackcurrent bushes round the septic tank had berries as big a grapes!

Our

I was now enrolled in a three year engineering course at Bridgwater Tech and travelled to school each day on the Western National 215 bus driven by Stan and his conductor Tony.
The school classrooms were scattered all over town and groups of students could aften be seen in their blue uniforms walking between lessons. Us engineering students also had a machine shop where we learnt the skills of the centre lathes and milling machines in addition to a technical drawing office.

We attended physical education lessons at Cranleigh Gardens which always ended in everyone being told to run up alongside the Parret River to Somerset Bridge and back. A bunch of us would hide in an old wartime pillbox and smoke fags before joining the rest as they ran back until the day the PE teacher caught us!

The other pupils at the school we on a two year Building course who we regarded as somewhat inferior to us engineering students. I began to think about what I would do after leaving school and hit on the idea of joining the Merchant Navy to become a marine engineer. A new training scheme had started which involved two years further education after leaving school and this I resolved to do.

My best friend in those days was a bloke called Danny Davies who lived in Castle Street in Nether Stowey, a mile or so along the A39 from Keenthorne.
Danny's father was a bookie in Bridgwater and seemed to be doing alright as Danny was give a new Trumph Herald convertable. We put the car to good use at the weekends travelling to different town on the hunt for girls which we usually insuccessful.

Danny had developed an unusual way of speaking. For example he would call a bedroom a 'bedrame' and would suggest a trip to Torquay as a trip to 'Torquead'!
His brother Michael was some 10 years younger than Danny who in turn had a mate of similar age called Chris Hockey who also lived in the village. Little did I know then that I would meet up with Chris in later life and that we would become good friends.

Danny graduated to a Jaguar e-type later in his life and moved to London where he was sadly killed in a car accident with the Jag cut in half in the collision.

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