I was born in Wales, early in 1950, very premature and small. My life was saved by a new drug, tetracycline, of which I received- as a new baby- several large doses. These were to affect my life for ever after.

As a side effect of the oxygen tent I had an inward squint, and due to an infected lung was also subject to bouts of bronchitis. Or maybe not. I did hear the term "broncho pneumonia" but that doesn't seem to exist now! I was premature and my parents smoked heavily. I suspect bronchiolitis with post-bronchiolitis syndrome, or maybe COPD (the doctors inspections tie in with COPD) - in either case, moving in 1959 to a much less smoky, less polluted place and larger living accomodation seems to have settled things. My parents also reduced (and later stopped) smoking.

In 1952 we moved from living with my fathers mother, into a new small council estate in Mickle Trafford (Springfield Lane now renamed Springfields), near Chester. My memories of this period of five years (52-57) include the small three class school. My sister was one of a very small band to pass the 11 plus exam, and returning to the school very many years later found her name inscribed on the roll of honour.

My father had a bike with a small child seat and we used to bike around. Chester Zoo at Upton was very close by and visited several times.

A neighbour had a tv set and we visited to watch- I especially remember the early US tv show DRAGNET and the BBC live play The Trollenburg Terror.

We visited the Odeon Cinema in Chester, which had an organ which went up and down, and a kids matinee with a talent show and sing-alongs with a ball bouncing over the words on screen.

Summer Holidays were a day trip to Rhyl on the railway from Chester, or a period spent staying with grandparents in Northop or Mold- I think I stayed more often at Northop. Travel to Mold was by train from Chester, but Northop involved a bus from either Chester or Mold. I don't recall a particularly frequent bus service at this time. Grandfather Jack had a lovely garden where he grew flowers and vegetables, on the remnants of great grandads house's garden. In 2004 it was an asphalt car park. We went blackberrying, or collected elderberries, strolling down the traffic free Green, and enjoying the then publicly accessible and enjoyable Park (now a very large golf course- the footpaths are there, but use at your peril of being clobbered by a golf ball). When she was a little girl Mum and her family enjoyed the Park too.

Gran had a wind up gramophone, and a tv set which had a lever to focus the picture! Initially the only electric was from the light sockets which ended up with many adaptors. There was no bath at Grans, except the tin bath in the kitchen, and only an outside toilet, so the high beds had room underneath for a chamber pot. The cooker was a Rayburn coal fired range.

The front parlor was little used and housed a piano, which I never heard played.

If we went to Mold to stay with Nan, often for the day, we could enjoy the lovely street market, and on Sunday morning, when Nan had a religious service in her front room, we went walking around the countryside to the South. It was a long time before I identified the roots of her belief as I tracked down the son of a US service man who had attended the services in 1949.

Nan had house services for a none-creedal branch of Christianity based around the "Sermon on the Mount" rather than a man made creed. It seems to have been German originated as The Brethren, and her section was based around Ohio in the USA, where the visiting serviceman came from.

There was no radio or tv at Nans but she did have electric and gas and a bath (both my grandparents had largely unused pianos). The toilet was part of the house, but you still had to go out of the back door to get to it. The coal fire was lit with a gas poker. Pride of place on the mantelpiece was a stone encased clock, carved by my father's father. I still have the casing but with a new battery movement. Above her bed was a small print of "Sweet Slumber" by Lilian Rowles.

We spent some time in the Grosvenor Gardens, Chester; visiting the Cathedral; and walking along the River Dee. I well remember the strong smell of brewing (Greenall's brewery was in Northgate Street).

As Dad was working in the evenings and weekends at the Royalty Theatre as an usher, we also got to visit the theatre quite often. Sitting in the upper gallery- where I do not recall any seats, just a stepped floor to sit on. The flood lights had been rescued from WW2 use. I recall an early appearance by the Ballet Rambert. Amongst the variety theatre acts, an Apache Dance made a lasting impression on me- I think I was a bit young for such ritualised violence!

I saw many acts which were famous or became so- Alma Cogan and Nat Gonella come to mind. My autograph book with many famous signatures disappeared in the early 1960s. Many of my things were trashed in 1962.

During the 1950s period we paid a visit to my Aunt Nell in Slough, home of the Mars Bar factory and whilst there visited London - I have a photo of the family by the Victoria Fountain outside Buckingham Palace and what was then an obligatory photo of my sister and I feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square..

My bronchitis meant I spent some time in hospital in Chester, also for a "personal" operation, and an operation to try to correct the squint- I now have an outward squint instead, growing wider as the scar tissue thickens, and can never appreciate 3d movies! I do remember having the stitches removed from around my eye. Chester Hospital was quite primitive at the time, with open fires to warm the wards, smelly oil cloth table covers, and aluminium cups and plates. And a strong smell of disinfectant.

Mickle Trafford Church of England wasn't in the village and was quite a walk away, but we did go to the odd jumble sale and bought some cheap toys and books. I recall a singer with a guitar. My personal cuddly toys were a green Scotty dog, home made from an ancient coat, and a smaller also home made stuffed black sock with shirt buttons for eyes and an embroidered mouth. From Mickle Trafford I still have a family ornament- a battered and not very special plaster horse which travelled to Singapore and back in the sixties.

We had one radio set in Mickle Trafford and no tv or gramophone- the radio was a KB (Kolster Brands) cream bakelite "toaster" radio. One play on the Light Programme I vividly recalled from 1957- it was never repeated but in 2018 I found a copy- an Agatha Christie play written especially for radio. My sister recalls Mum and Dad staying up to listen to the 4am big fight by Rocky Marciano in 1955.

By 1957 Dad had spent some time in London and finally we all moved to a rented house in Wimbledon whilst Dad worked as a Civil Servant also in London. I believe this part of Wimbledon has now been renamed Merton. In 1957 it was Wimbledon SW19.

Wimbledon- we lived at 67 Gladstone Rd and I went to Dundonald Road Primary and Junior school. Even at the tender age of 7 I was able to cross a London main road and go to school on my own. Things have changed.

We used a nearby church hall for country dancing lessons; the dining room was a separate building which was also used to show films, and nearby was a park with some good play equipment including a very smooth brass slide. I met a girl there who gave me her address, but alas my mother threw it out - and again and again threw out my toys, I have no things left from my childhood. I have a couple of books and an ink pad from when I was 12. My wife also retains nothing from her earlier years.

Games I had in Wimbledon included Waddington's SCOOP (original yellow box with white card telephone) and the scrollable "ASTRON" (the early space edition)- both now incredibly rare, but I was only allowed to have them for a few months before they went out.

I also attended cinema matinee performances on Saturdays - indeed we seem to have gone to the pictures quite frequently at this time. I remember the serial Zorro. Films seen around this time included tom thumb (lower case lettering intended there) with a very memorable whistling song. My sister took me to a showing of The Tommy Steele Story- if memory serves right that was at a distant cinema in Raynes Park.

Central London wasn't that far away and we seem to have visited most of the large galleries and museums. I remember the Radio and Television Show at Olympia where there was a demonstration of radio effects.

Our road had a small shop, which Mum used, and when the lady owner needed hospital treatment, Mum helped out at the shop. This lady was on her own with a daughter, Joan, who went to the cinema with me on Saturdays -

Our two families had a holiday in Clacton together. At this time we also visited Southend with my grandparents, Gran (May Hughes) and Jack.

On the corner of our road was a Woolworths which I frequented to buy sweets. It was from this store that I purchased - with my pocket money - my first camera, only four shillings and sixpence (23 new pence decimal) with 16 shots on 127 film.

In Wimbledon we had our own electric gramophone, I had a Triang two wheel scooter, and we had our first tv set- and when ill I was able to see the very early BBC colour test transmissions (in black and white of course). Shows of memory here would be The Army Game, Emergency Ward 10, Tug Boat Annie, The Invisible Man, Robin Hood, and the BBC Outside Broadcast shows.

By 1959 Dad was getting restless and we moved for just a short period- maybe seven or eight months- to live above a butchers shop in New Malden.

There were trains from New Malden to London and a trolleybus service between Kingston and Wimbledon (I think the nearest bus equivalent is the 152 bus in 2020...).

The library was nearby and I made good use of it, in particular discovering Science Fiction (Angus McVicar and William F Temple in particular) although also reading E Nesbit and Hugh Lofting. On the corner of our road this time was a new fangled ice cream parlor. Friday nights were special- fish and chip tea from the chip shop.

I attended a Church of England school, where we sat in rows of very old oak desks. In one art lesson I did a watercolour to illustrate a William F Temple story, and the teacher took me out of class to the room next door to show the painting to the headmaster who was taking a class at the time! I also played in a school play, a sadly somewhat racist missionary tale which is best forgotten. I had no say in the matter.

1959 was polio vaccination time, and I did my first political activity- putting Labour party fliers through doors one day (then age 9). My parents then supported the Liberal party and were not too impressed...

The trolleybus to Kingston was very handy and Kingston was our main shopping centre- and also gave us access to the walk along the Thames to Hampton Court.

1959 was a hot Summer. It prepared us for our next move, as Dad took a job as a civil servant- in one of the outposts of Empire, Singapore. It is important to note that there was NO WAR in Malaya officially at this time - although it was declared over in 1960. There remained "activity" in North Malaya into the 70s.

We sailed on the P&O boat the SS CORFU, (not from the originally intended London, but from Southampton due to a London dock strike) quite soon to be scrapped in the Far East. I have considerable memorabilia of this voyage and have placed details of the trip including some company photographs and a ships plan on a separate web page linked to at the start of this paragraph.

In Singapore we stayed for a long period at a Guest House, Tresco, where we read the weekly overseas editions of the UK papers, next to a Chinese village ("kampong"). My sister and I attended an Army school.

Some decades later (2015!) I was contacted by a Singapore museum about our stay at Tresco in 1959 and I was able to furnish them with a picture of the guest house for their magazine. I surprised myself by remembering the names of the two principal staff, although as I never saw their names written I had recalled Wun (the Duty Manager) as One (sorry!), I did get Cheng right- and he was still alive. My father's photo also had an ancient car, whose English owner returned to the UK and left the car with Wun.

At this time Singapore was not independent and there was a large group of British servicemen. It was not as safe as Dad had been led to expect- the ongoing war with the Communists was almost a secret war. Although Dad worked for the army, we went to army schools, and later lived in an army house, we were civilians. If Dad really had been in the army he would have received a campaign and commemorative medal from Malaysia.

About Nov 59 we finally moved to a flat at 190 Moulmein Road- then a quiet backwater very different to the thoroughfare it is today. This was not a British enclave but a mixed race area, with Indian neighbours above and alongside. I visited with an Indian lady teacher who played piano.

Behind the block of flats was a small Chinese village (kampong) where we witnessed ritual self flagellation using chains and some sharper looking implements of various kinds. Down the road was a small street stall that took deliveries of blocks of ice (nb ambient air temperature 80F) - they would use a wood-shave to produce ice shavings, put these in childrens hands and pour a small bottle of organge over- a very early slush puppy type product. Unbeleivably there was a salesman on a tricycle who sold hot roast chestnuts!

Christmas 1959 was odd- bright sunshine, 80 degree temperatures. We never did have any air conditioning, just wide open windows and slowly revolving fans.

And little lizards all over the place. And HUGE spiders. And snakes.

In Singapore we did not have a tv (tv broadcasting arrived on the island after we had left) but we did get our first tape recorder. Alas those tapes disappeared.

In Singapore my toys included lots of Matchbox and Corgi vehicles, a game of Waddington's Buccaneer, a jet propelled car (lasted a few days), an electric car that ran along coiled flexible wires, a 3-rail Marklin electric train set- all thrown away by my mother when we left the island.

We employed our first "servant" (amah) a young girl we were happy to pay well and who stayed with us for our full stay in Singapore.

We visited most if not all of the tourist spots, the Botanical Gardens with their monkeys, the Van Kleef aquarium, McRitchie Reservoir, the very strange Tiger Balm Gardens (coloured concrete depictions of the Chinese gods). We travelled just about everywhere by taxi, which was very cheap. Travel to and from school was by a bus operated by the Changhi Bus Company, chartered by the army.

Beautiful ice cream sundaes (and plates full of chips) at Singapore Cold Storage. C K Tang department store where we bought lots of things - including some green Chinese plates I still own today. Tangs was then much smaller than the modern store it is today. There was and a brand new "supermarket" Fitzpatricks (very cold air conditioning!) We also shopped at store Gian Singh's (very useful to the British in the occupation but alas hounded off the island after we left), but almost not at all at Robinson's which seemed tired and overpriced.