I was taken home in our dark red Talbot Alpine, it was an old 1981 X-reg, and top of the range for it's time. We had that car a good number of years and was taken on all our holidays in it, until the late 90's when we finally gave it to the East Cowes fire brigade to practise cutting open.
The first few years of my life were the same as any other screaming child, being fed, being changed, and being spoilt by relatives. They also used to give me a bottle of cold tea instead of milk on occaision. My parents always new I'd be a little strange, as when I learned to crawl, I could only crawl backwards. It used the same technique to safely descend the staircase. I could go down, but not up. One of the first things I remember is falling back in my high chair and smashing through the glass door, and finding myself lying on the patio outside with shards of glass all around me. There is still a cut on my left index finger which is a tribute to that fall. Otherwise, I had a perfectly normal infancy.
I also have very early memories of my room (currently the 'computer room' or study). The wardrobe was next to the window, a changing table next to that, and my cot along the back wall. I remember the soft toys and clinging on to the bars crying out in the dark at night. I very vividly remember the light coming on and a frazzled mum squinting at me and wondering what the bloody hell is he screaming about now? I do remember mum not being very happy with me for waking her up, and how frightened I felt when she shouted at me.
When I woke up the mornings I would scamper into my parent's bedroom and squidging my mothers nose until she woke up.
I enjoyed, most of all, going into town with dad. This was after I greeted mum coming back from night shifts working as an A&E ward nurse by pressing my face and hands against the front door glass when I heard the car coming down the driveway. Mum would go to bed, and I would quietly play with my plastic car track or brio until dad was ready to go. We would walk or drive down to the shops in East Cowes, and then he would involve me by asking me where things in the shop were. If we had any lamb on the list he would announce that we need some 'la-a-a-a-amb' in a sheeps voice which I found very fun as a child, and is something I find myself doing even now. One day we were leaving Gateways (later Somerfield, then Coop) and there were roadworks outside. Dad asked me if I knew what JCB meant on the side of one of the excavators. I thought very hard about it, and after a few seconds I triumphantly said, "Good Big Digger!" After the main shop we would go to the delicatessen where dad would buy a roll for lunch and then he would take me to the 'Geraldine's' sweet shop for one treat. I would usually choose a twix, galaxy or smarties, but my favourite was crème eggs. Dad would put it in the shopping before we got home, then he would let me eat it in the living room where I continued to play with my trains and cars for the rest of the day. Halcyon days indeed.
On the subject of Good Big Diggers, I vividly recall a dream I had, where I was on my plastic red sit on bus, being chased by an excavator down the lane which lead to my school.
I vaguely remember my first day of school. My closest school was a Roman Catholic school built next to a convent, run by a nun called Sister Marguerite. It meant I could be raised a catholic like my mother, her mother, and her mother before that. The prospect was terrifying for me. There was a stony road leading to the school and I remember falling over and cutting my knee, and this compounded my discomfort. When I got there I was a little nervous of all my other classmates, some of them seemed a little loud and imposing. I was quite shy at first but my confidence grew over a matter of days and I made a good set of friends. One of the first friends I made at the age of four was James, and despite a few moments of very bad history we are still very good friends at the age of 25. I remember our very first lesson at the school, with Mrs Higgins, we were told that the carpet in the story area was a magic carpet, and that the right word would make it fly. I watched all the other children before and after me go up and try their word to make the carpet fly, some of them shouting silly, ridiculous words and thinking it was a great joke. I was oblivious to the irony and really thought that the carpet was genuinely magical! I wondered for a long time after that day what that magic word was...
I was just coming up to my fifth birthday when my brother Martin was born. Mother was very ill during the pregnancy and I remember Dad scolding me aggressively for making noise which was distressing mum, who was extremely ill in bed. I remember going in to see her once and feeling very upset that she wanted to be left alone.
I remember being in class one, upstairs at Holy Cross, when Sr Marguerite the headteacher came to tell me that my baby brother had been born. I remember feeling so proud and excited that I had a new friend, and I felt an enormous sense of ownership. My next memory is like a bit like the needle skipping on a record, but I remember being in the maternity ward with Martin in a big plastic box on a trolley, and I felt upset that I wasn't able to see him properly or play with him straight away!
Martin's arrival did not make me jealous at all, I him more as a source of entertainment. Martin was a massive baby, weighing it at over 11lb, nicknamed by friends of the family as 'Bismark' after a huge German battleship. When he was a little more 'formed' Martin was strapped into a bouncy chair which mum left on the floor for most of the time so I could interact and play with him. I enjoyed the way he laughed and giggled when I springed his bouncy chair, so I springed it harder and harder until it flopped completely over, sending my little newborn brother flat on his face with the chair on top of him. I ran off crying, terrified that I had killed him, but Martin just kept on giggling, mother eventually discovered him and turned him face up again. Another time I exploited my brother was a little while later, mother had taken a chocolate sponge she had baked from the oven on to the counter to cool. Martin was in his bouncy chair gurgling away to himself with a stuffed blue dog. Not long had mother left the room I pulled up a chair and took a large handful of chocolate sponge and pushed it into my mouth. I heard mother descend the stairs so I pushed the chair back under the table and stood innocently in the middle of the room. Mother exclaimed, "Who's been eating the chocolate cake??!" Wide eyed and mouth smothered in chocolate, I pointed at Martin fastened to his bouncy chair and shouted accusingly, "HIM!".
My favourite holidays were visiting my grandparents on the mainland. It was always an adventure going on across on the ferry once a year and drive for hours on the motorway, watching all the cars, lorries and motorbikes overtake us. Mother took us to see my maternal grandparents in St Albans, though they were separated and lived apart, we stayed with Granny. She became known as 'Granny Poorly Arm' due to an incident where she fell and broke her arm and had it in plaster round about the time I was learning to speak. I think it was mother who came up with it as a joke, but it has now stuck like that forever. We often visited my cousins and aunts and uncles who lived nearby. I most of all loved going to see Nanny Iris, my paternal grandmother, in Woking. I loved the smell of second hand smoke in her house, as I always associated it with so many happy memories. She had a cat called Tinky, and although I was allergic to every other cat, Tinky was a long haired cat and I was absolutely fine with her. Iris had a lodger called Frank whom I really enjoyed spending time with. He always used to offer me some of his Rich Tea Biscuits, which I didn't otherwise have, hence they became known to me and soon everyone else as 'Frank's biscuits' wherever we were! We didn't visit my paternal grandfather much, Grandad Ron who lived in Cornwall, but he always came for exactly 10 days every summer and always brought me a styrofoam aeroplane to chase around the garden. I always looked forward to his visits. For Christmas Grandad Ron sent Martin and us a cheque for twenty pounds, as he could never remember birthdays so he sent it all in one go. When Martin was two he managed to get hold of a pen and write two more zeros on the cheque. To give him credit, he has been consistently thrifty ever since! On this occasion though dad had to destroy the cheque and ask for another one!
We had a lovely next door neighbour called Winnie. She was a retired widow who used to come round for a cup of tea and a chat every week, and more often than not we had her round for Sunday dinner. We used to play board games, and my favourite was the Game of Life. I always managed to engineer it so that I got to University and live in a mansion, and mum and Winnie always had a car full of kids, and generally wound up at the mental institute. Winne considered by Martin and myself as a grandmother. She always used to babysit for us. Martin and I used to play games in the living room in our pyjamas while Winnie watched Coronation Street, and we all shared her box of ginger chocolates she accepted as payment for looking after us. She would occasionally let us stay up past our bedtime, but only for about half an hour.
I was mischievous in primary school, often in tandem with James F. I don't necessarily remember exactly what I did, just generally shouting and being over excitable. I do remember sitting on the cold wooden benched outside the staffroom with James ready to be told off by Mr McShane or Sister Marguerite. We eventually got so accustomed to this that we just ended up using this time to swap Thunderbirds cards. My other friends were Charlie C, Andrew H, Matthew S, Joshua, the twins Alex & Daniel, Beth D, Christina G, Victoria F, Lottie O'S, Jo Jo D, Jack and Thomas. We had a school trip to York in 1994 to see the Viking settlements. I remember having a stomach bug on the way back to the hostel and having to run ahead, but getting caught short and having to dive into the bushes, watching crocodile march past as I squatted deep in the trees. I was also guilty at that age of teasing a boy with Down's Syndrome. I didn't understand the disability at the time, and got severely reprimanded from Mr McShane, who firmly poked me in the chest while he shouted at me on the grounds of the hostel. I was absolutely terrified of him, but I remember him apologising to me in school for it the following week, so I suppose he realised I was only young and excitable - and his reaction was over the top. Another teacher I feared was Mrs Short, who was a large, gruff woman who I was certain her only existence was to make my life a misery. One day I had lost a workbook and remember laying in my bed one summer's evening worrying about her reaction, being too afraid to tell dad because I was worried sick that I wouldn't be allowed to go swimming with the class if I couldn't find it. I don't have any specific memories aside from her tortoise, Speedy, which she occasionally brought into school when it wasn't hibernating.
I vaguely remember my first day of school. My closest school was a Roman Catholic school built next to a convent, run by a nun called Sister Marguerite. It meant I could be raised a catholic like my mother, her mother, and her mother before that. The prospect was terrifying for me. There was a stony road leading to the school and I remember falling over and cutting my knee, and this compounded my discomfort. When I got there I was a little nervous of all my other classmates, some of them seemed a little loud and imposing. I was quite shy at first but my confidence grew over a matter of days and I made a good set of friends. One of the first friends I made at the age of four was James, and despite a few moments of very bad history we are still very good friends at the age of 25. I remember our very first lesson at the school, with Mrs Higgins, we were told that the carpet in the story area was a magic carpet, and that the right word would make it fly. I watched all the other children before and after me go up and try their word to make the carpet fly, some of them shouting silly, ridiculous words and thinking it was a great joke. I was oblivious to the irony and really thought that the carpet was genuinely magical! I wondered for a long time after that day what that magic word was...
I remember being in class one, upstairs at Holy Cross, when Sr Marguerite the headteacher came to tell me that my baby brother had been born. I remember feeling so proud and excited that I had a new friend, and I felt an enormous sense of ownership. My next memory is like a bit like the needle skipping on a record, but I remember being in the maternity ward with Martin in a big plastic box on a trolley, and I felt upset that I wasn't able to see him properly or play with him straight away!
Martin's arrival did not make me jealous at all, I him more as a source of entertainment. Martin was a massive baby, weighing it at over 11lb, nicknamed by friends of the family as 'Bismark' after a huge German battleship. When he was a little more 'formed' Martin was strapped into a bouncy chair which mum left on the floor for most of the time so I could interact and play with him. I enjoyed the way he laughed and giggled when I springed his bouncy chair, so I springed it harder and harder until it flopped completely over, sending my little newborn brother flat on his face with the chair on top of him. I ran off crying, terrified that I had killed him, but Martin just kept on giggling, mother eventually discovered him and turned him face up again. Another time I exploited my brother was a little while later, mother had taken a chocolate sponge she had baked from the oven on to the counter to cool. Martin was in his bouncy chair gurgling away to himself with a stuffed blue dog. Not long had mother left the room I pulled up a chair and took a large handful of chocolate sponge and pushed it into my mouth. I heard mother descend the stairs so I pushed the chair back under the table and stood innocently in the middle of the room. Mother exclaimed, "Who's been eating the chocolate cake??!" Wide eyed and mouth smothered in chocolate, I pointed at Martin fastened to his bouncy chair and shouted accusingly, "HIM!".
My favourite holidays were visiting my grandparents on the mainland. It was always an adventure going on across on the ferry once a year and drive for hours on the motorway, watching all the cars, lorries and motorbikes overtake us. Mother took us to see my maternal grandparents in St Albans, though they were separated and lived apart, we stayed with Granny. She became known as 'Granny Poorly Arm' due to an incident where she fell and broke her arm and had it in plaster round about the time I was learning to speak. I think it was mother who came up with it as a joke, but it has now stuck like that forever. We often visited my cousins and aunts and uncles who lived nearby. I most of all loved going to see Nanny Iris, my paternal grandmother, in Woking. I loved the smell of second hand smoke in her house, as I always associated it with so many happy memories. She had a cat called Tinky, and although I was allergic to every other cat, Tinky was a long haired cat and I was absolutely fine with her. Iris had a lodger called Frank whom I really enjoyed spending time with. He always used to offer me some of his Rich Tea Biscuits, which I didn't otherwise have, hence they became known to me and soon everyone else as 'Frank's biscuits' wherever we were! We didn't visit my paternal grandfather much, Grandad Ron who lived in Cornwall, but he always came for exactly 10 days every summer and always brought me a styrofoam aeroplane to chase around the garden. I always looked forward to his visits. For Christmas Grandad Ron sent Martin and us a cheque for twenty pounds, as he could never remember birthdays so he sent it all in one go. When Martin was two he managed to get hold of a pen and write two more zeros on the cheque. To give him credit, he has been consistently thrifty ever since! On this occasion though dad had to destroy the cheque and ask for another one!
We had a lovely next door neighbour called Winnie. She was a retired widow who used to come round for a cup of tea and a chat every week, and more often than not we had her round for Sunday dinner. We used to play board games, and my favourite was the Game of Life. I always managed to engineer it so that I got to University and live in a mansion, and mum and Winnie always had a car full of kids, and generally wound up at the mental institute. Winne considered by Martin and myself as a grandmother. She always used to babysit for us. Martin and I used to play games in the living room in our pyjamas while Winnie watched Coronation Street, and we all shared her box of ginger chocolates she accepted as payment for looking after us. She would occasionally let us stay up past our bedtime, but only for about half an hour.
I was mischievous in primary school, often in tandem with James F. I don't necessarily remember exactly what I did, just generally shouting and being over excitable. I do remember sitting on the cold wooden benched outside the staffroom with James ready to be told off by Mr McShane or Sister Marguerite. We eventually got so accustomed to this that we just ended up using this time to swap Thunderbirds cards. My other friends were Charlie C, Andrew H, Matthew S, Joshua, the twins Alex & Daniel, Beth D, Christina G, Victoria F, Lottie O'S, Jo Jo D, Jack and Thomas. We had a school trip to York in 1994 to see the Viking settlements. I remember having a stomach bug on the way back to the hostel and having to run ahead, but getting caught short and having to dive into the bushes, watching crocodile march past as I squatted deep in the trees. I was also guilty at that age of teasing a boy with Down's Syndrome. I didn't understand the disability at the time, and got severely reprimanded from Mr McShane, who firmly poked me in the chest while he shouted at me on the grounds of the hostel. I was absolutely terrified of him, but I remember him apologising to me in school for it the following week, so I suppose he realised I was only young and excitable - and his reaction was over the top. Another teacher I feared was Mrs Short, who was a large, gruff woman who I was certain her only existence was to make my life a misery. One day I had lost a workbook and remember laying in my bed one summer's evening worrying about her reaction, being too afraid to tell dad because I was worried sick that I wouldn't be allowed to go swimming with the class if I couldn't find it. I don't have any specific memories aside from her tortoise, Speedy, which she occasionally brought into school when it wasn't hibernating.
We also went swimming as a school, but the memorable parts weren't the swimming, but the small sweet I used to buy from the vending machine at the end, and the bus ride back to school, and resting my head on the window which used to shake a lot. Quite painful really. There was also the trips to the ice rink where we were all taught to skate. I found the skates painful but I got to a reasonable level and can still skate to a certain degree. Father Brian, the local East Cowes priest who was also associated with Holy Cross used to come along too. He was an expert and often showed off his spins and jumps, it was so funny to watch and seemed so incongruous!
As soon as we got to Archbishop King Middle School (years 5-8, the Island had a different school system than the rest of the country) I mellowed. I was back to being a small fish in a big pond, and thus became a bit if a teacher's pet, as my teacher Mrs Barber seemed easily impressed by everything I did. My classes were 5B (Mrs Barber), 6K (Mr Brofhoski), 7H (Mr Hodd) and 8W (Mr Wheeler).
I walked from home to the bus stop on Well Road opposite the Spar Shop (which did very well out of us) and caught the single decker bus to school. The rough girls always sat at the back, and we sat in the front, the driver always stopping to shout at us if we pressed the 'stop' bell. The radio on the bus played the top songs in the charts which engrained themselves on me, which is why I have a burning nostalgia for late '90s music. In year 6 I was found to be short sighted and was prescribed spectacles, so I looked even more of a geek. I still had a good circle of friends and we enjoyed playing general practical jokes on each other and chasing the girls, as boys generally do. My friends then were Tom I, Ben W, Stephen K, Harry F, Jonathan S, and of course James F.
In year 6 we had a school residential trip to Holland, it was the first time I'd ever been away from my family for any length of time and it was so exciting! We were taken to tulip farms, a cheese making farm, and saw lots of windmills on the way! The highlight for us was probably a miniature legoland type village which we were taken to at the end of the trip, as well as a water park which had the highest flumes in Europe. I went on this flume and was unware that a good portion of this was a steep vertical drop! I thought I was drowning, before I was propelled round the U-bend and banged my head on the way round! I bought my parents a souvenir, which was a plastic windmill thermometer holder. It was gold and shiny which was what sold it to me!
I enjoyed the hot summer fetes at ABK, putting a penny on a gridded Isle of Wight and winning a glass of glass beads. The music room, where I got my inspiration to play the keyboard and later church organ playing from Mr Nash, who gave us a synthesised rendition of "All Heaven Declares". Mr Brofhoski was a very stern teacher and was very generous in giving out credits, merits and detentions in equal measures. Health and Safety week and Economic Awareness Week were opportunities to get hundreds of credits and merits, play games and generally enjoy time off the normal timetable. I also remember dictation with Mr Brofhoski quite strongly. Tragedy hit the school mid way through when my classmate Mark Channing fell from a skylight of a disused building and died. He wasn't in my friendship group but it was still a massive shock. Our school held a memorial service.
It was while I was in year 5 (about nine or ten years old) that we nearly lost dad to his failing heart. He had become very ill after three heart attacks in about ten years. He had been on the waiting list for a heart transplant for months, and now he was starting to fade. Mum packed me and my brother off to St Albans to stay with granny over the Easter holiday, so that dad could be properly looked after in the hope that a heart came available, or at the very least (I suspect but never had it confirmed) made him comfortable and let him pass away at home. One morning Granny burst into my room, waking me up, excitedly telling me that dad had had the heart transplant. It felt so unreal, I was relieved and amazed that I had been given my dad back. I was out in the garden looking at the sky, and thinking that everything was amazing. Dad would be okay!
I enjoyed the hot summer fetes at ABK, putting a penny on a gridded Isle of Wight and winning a glass of glass beads. The music room, where I got my inspiration to play the keyboard and later church organ playing from Mr Nash, who gave us a synthesised rendition of "All Heaven Declares". Mr Brofhoski was a very stern teacher and was very generous in giving out credits, merits and detentions in equal measures. Health and Safety week and Economic Awareness Week were opportunities to get hundreds of credits and merits, play games and generally enjoy time off the normal timetable. I also remember dictation with Mr Brofhoski quite strongly. Tragedy hit the school mid way through when my classmate Mark Channing fell from a skylight of a disused building and died. He wasn't in my friendship group but it was still a massive shock. Our school held a memorial service.
It was while I was in year 5 (about nine or ten years old) that we nearly lost dad to his failing heart. He had become very ill after three heart attacks in about ten years. He had been on the waiting list for a heart transplant for months, and now he was starting to fade. Mum packed me and my brother off to St Albans to stay with granny over the Easter holiday, so that dad could be properly looked after in the hope that a heart came available, or at the very least (I suspect but never had it confirmed) made him comfortable and let him pass away at home. One morning Granny burst into my room, waking me up, excitedly telling me that dad had had the heart transplant. It felt so unreal, I was relieved and amazed that I had been given my dad back. I was out in the garden looking at the sky, and thinking that everything was amazing. Dad would be okay!
Also at the age of 10 I expressed an interest in learning a musical instrument. Mum took me along to Yamaha Music School, and I learned to play the organ. Mum had done it with me, but plateaued after around a year, but I continued to go every week for the next eight years.
We also had a family holiday to Cyprus. It was October or November and getting off the plane at night in such unusual heat was so exciting for me and my brother. We shared a room in a self catering apartment mum and dad had booked. They also hired the services of an elderly Greek woman and her mother who looked after Martin and I in their apartment while mum and dad had an evening out. She kept offering us food, telling us to eat up, eat up. I was genuinely frightened that she was fattening us up to eat us. This holiday was also the first time I ever went snorkelling. We went to a local pool to practise, and then spent time in Limassol, feeding the fish with bread (not allowed to do this any more). I also found a handle of an amphora, possibly ancient. Dad took me to the local police station to get permission to bring it home, as it was possible I would be in trouble for removing articles of historical interest from the country. They said it was okay, I reckon they had plenty of bits of old pottery!
We also got our first home computer in the nineties, I think about 1997. The windows tune, the internet dial up noise, Encarta '95 and a safari CD rom were the height of technology - I used to brag that we were the proud owners of a Pentium II! Our first favourite games were Chip's Challenge, a Skiing game, and a ground breaking flight simulator game TFX (Tactical Fighter Experiment). I used to record the synthesizer soundtrack on a tape cassette (recorded through a small microphone pressed against the tiny tinny computer speakers) and listen to it in the bath! Many thanks to Martin for reminding me of this. He used to play Microsoft Flight Simulator. Grandad Ron, who used to be a radio operator and navigator in the RAF and later commercial flights, tried to teach him how to fly properly. Martin then took his Boeing 737 and do a barrel roll under the Eiffel Tower. "That's not flying, that's just reflexes!" exclaimed Grandad. Martin laughed so hard.
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