Born: Yes I was, despite Hitler bombing London. I think it was a personal thing between him and me, I had two balls and he didn't. If I'm right it was some sulk.
I was born a ´Devonshire Dumplinǵ. I went back to Bideford once, to the nursing home where I was launched, no blue plaque yet.
Schooling: Rotherhithe New Road. That was the Rotherhithe before they got rid of the rats in the riverside warehouses and installed the other sort.
I was actually there when our neighbour's Sunday joint floated away on the flood of 1953. Surely everyone alive at the time remembers that, the leg of lamb I mean. My family, I and the neighbours chased it downstream for miles As I recall it outpaced us all, we were all rather thin and weak at the time, I think it must have ended up gracing the tables of the ultra rich downstream.
Undeterred we searched for days until the increasing size of the mob was spotted by the Government who thought we looked hungry and , as a measure of their concern, called out the riot squad.
But I digress, my teacher at Rotherhithe thought that, because I liked drawing ships, I might like to go to sea. Perfectly logical, when you consider that one of my class mates, who enjoyed drawing plants, later became one.
So I went to the London Nautical School, there I learned navigation, seamanship and how to muffle screams whilst receiving six of the best from the headmaster. Again undeterred I left as soon as I could, but they kept dragging me back until, at fifteen, I was able to leave legally and without the blood hounds and the skirmish lines that so blocked the Waterloo traffic.
I ran away to sea for two pound fourteen and six a week gross and enlisted at Blackheath Recruiting Office, not there now, I burnt that to the ground during my first leave.
There followed a year of hell, the beatings were fine, but the sport...every afternoon.
Come on.
Someone, I can't remember who, spotted I wasn't keen and decide I might prefer hard labour. It was then I acquired a liking for hard work. Hard work equals no pain being the rough formula. God how I loved HMS Ganges.
In those days you signed on in the Navy for nine years from the age of eighteen, there was a chance to buy yourself out when you were twenty four. I think it was that consoling thought that turned most of us to drink.
Then in 1971 they stopped the tot, That was the last thing I remember until I woke up in a Horticultural College studying that subject and married to my Brenda.
