EARLY YEARS & LINEAGE
0059 BIRTH, 1940
I was born in 1940; as my parents’ first and only child, which was then the fashion brought on by the uncertainty of war.
My arrival, during the blitz on Merseyside, had a spectacular accompaniment. It was a time when the fires raging in Liverpool were so bright that, even where I was born, at night you could read a newspaper by their light. This was even though we were half a dozen or so miles away on the Wirral peninsula.
More specifically, a German reconnaissance aircraft had been shot down just a few fields away the day before. This had been much to the delight of the locals, who within hours had stripped it of every conceivable souvenir. The Nazi high command had been less impressed, and – in retaliation - that night I was born in the middle of my own special air raid, with bombs exploding all around. My father, who had been left with the jam-making which my mother had been forced to abandon, was unable to get through to see his new son until daylight. Thus did I come to this world in a fashion which foreshadowed the drama which has characterised my life.
I can remember nothing of my time as a baby, though I was brought up in a relatively privileged household where my father was in a reserved occupation; a manager in the chemical industries. He had to satisfy his patriotism through eager participation in the activities of the Home Guard.
My father in his home-guard uniform
It was a loving family, and – like other members of my middle-class peer group - I was denied nothing. Thus I was weighed regularly at the local clinic, to ensure that I was the chubby baby which was then thought essential for good health. Further, to keep me in good health despite wartime rationing, I had the only eggs available while my doting parents went without.
My first, albeit hazy, memory was of my uncle calling on us prior to leaving for the front overseas. For years I assumed that I must have been three or four at the time, for I had clambered unaided down the stairs from my bedroom to see what the commotion was, but in fact it must have been when I was just eighteen months old. Maybe it was an especially important memory at the time, for the heart-breaking wrench of soldiers going away - for nobody knew how long, in fact in his case it was for more than three years - was visited on almost every family. But it was no less traumatic for each of them when it came.
My extended family in 1942.
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