Army Brat.

I can still remember my Dad being in the army…I must have been a sort of “army brat”Let’s see what I can dredge up. The earliest memory is from living in a top floor flat in Newport which at the time was in Monmouthshire. I can remember my mum with a pram trying to get up those three flights….with my baby brother Gordon who was born there in it and me me and brother Derek…18monthes between us trotting behind.

I remember winters were very cold and the bathroom used to grow massive icicles….these used to scare me and I have memories of sitting on a potty terrified

Dad used to be a valet/batman to a higher rank and after “dinners” he used to bring leftover sandwiches back home….which we called the filling”NAFI break”…..which was I think anchovy paste…I remember me and Derek hating them. Dad took me to the cinema He wore a bowtie and I had a coat with a velvet collar. And we had our photograph….which is in my photos

on Facebook….but I haven’t had the lesson on how to put them on. The film we saw was a Charlie Chaplin one…..all I remember is him eating a flower and getting upset over it.

Dad was next stationed at a place called High Lee in Cheshire. We had married quarters next to a family who had two children…Bobby and Josephine…..we used to all go off to play in the woods, climbing trees etc……only I never could climb to the top. I remember one time Derek, Bobby and Josephine climbed all to the top but I got stuck halfway up and started to cry……Two high ranked army chaps were walking by and wanted to know what was wrong and I blamed the ones at the top of the tree would not help me…..tell tail tit!

I remember a girl called Pauline who picked some flowers for a neighbour who gave her a penny for them. So I followed suit and did the same and got a penny also which I proudly gave to my mum…..who was so cross that she marched me back to the neighbour to give the penny back.

Started school in High Lee at age 5. Mum would walk me with Gordon in the pram and me and Derek hanging on to the handles along the very busy old North RD to school. Just writing that I had a flashback to walking son no1 to school when he was 5 holding onto the pram handle with a child on a pram seat and a newborn in the pram.

When Dad left the army we all came back up the North East where we lived with my Grandad and Nana till we were rehoused

that’s it for this one….like Arnie…I will be back