[2001]
EARLY YEARS & LINEAGE
These first sections of the collection briefly describe the previous history of both sides of my family, as told to me in a form of oral history. As such they indicate the historical factors, coming from the earlier generations, which shaped my character but also record the oral history to which I was exposed in a very literate family on a daily basis:
0020 MY GRANDFATHER
(0020T*)-1877-1961, was teacher extraordinaire, a radical in his youth,
and a major influence on me in my own earlier years
0038 NANA LANE
(0038T*)- 1895 1955, was his wife who,
typically for the time, was literally best described as a Yorkshire housewife.
0019 MA LEEDS/LIVERPOOL/BROMBOROUGH POOL
(0019T*)
Ma, my mother (and as dictated in outline by her), described her life from
her christening in Leeds in 1921 and then on to Liverpool and finally to Bromborough
Pool, where she met my father.
9303 EXTENDED FAMILY & PROXIMITY
(9303T*) in my
early years, like most other children of the time, I was a member of a close-knit,
extended family; made up of the Lanes and the Mercers.
9244 MY FATHER'S FAMILY the Mercers were, though, less
close knit
9987 GASLIGHT - NANA'S HOUSE, SOUTH VIEW but, as
usual then, the heart of even this leg of my family was the grandmother, on my
fathers side, here described in terms of the life she led before electric
light came to Bromborough Pool in the 1950s
The oral aspect of my history continues for the first five years of my life, since I have very few genuine memories of this:
0059 BIRTH 1940
(0059T*) this portrays my very early years during the blitz on Merseyside,
1940-1942, which though I can remember nothing of it so dominated the lives
of my parents
0044 EARLY MEMORIES
(0044T*) - 1943 to 1945, and thence
to the rest of my wartime life as a toddler - at Croft Avenue in Bromborough
9265 THE HOMEGUARD
(9265T*) during which time,
paradoxically, this was
what was remembered by my father as the fun time of his life.
0017 WAR END
(0017T*) it was only as the war ended that my
memories slowly start to emerge, but we were still living at Croft Avenue at
that time
[9300 MAP OF THE WIRRAL] this is provided to give a geographical context for the events, most of which were tightly confined within the Wirral Penninsula
hits
* Text only versions
