In The Beginning

I was told that I was a special winter baby, but also that it was a long strained birth that my mother endured. My mother told me that she was in labour for around nine hours, before I even started to show signs of coming into this world. I was a late birth as I was supposed to be born around the 27th December 1977, but did not surface till Tuesday January 3rd 1978. It was a cold day on that day when I popped my head into the world, with the nurses telling my mother that I had a good set of lungs on me with the amount of screaming that I did. Mother also told me that as soon as I was born, they placed me in her hands, in which she could not believe she had given birth to such a big baby. I weighed in at around ten pounds, and mother was told by the nurses that I was a very healthy strong child; even though I was the biggest baby born for such a long time at the hospital. We lived in a four bedroomed Victorian house in a quiet street in Haggerston, London. My father was born in Ramsgate, and my mother was East London born and bred, as she was born in Stepney. The first few years of my life, my mother told me that I was a very good child; as I rarely got on mothers nerves so I was told as father often winked at me when mother said this to me. It was only when I started to walk, did my mother have to have eyes in the back of her head. Apparently I was forever going into the cupboards, and made a disarray of things by throwing everything onto the floor making such a mess.

Every year we had a holiday in Ramsgate, where we visited my father's parents. My mother's mother died when she was twenty years old, and her father remarried and then moved to Essex with his new wife. Her older brother Stephen had married a Spanish lady and he moved to one of the Spanish islands. She still has contact with him, but we never got to see him as much, just like her father although he was only in Essex and could easily have visited us. My uncle Stephen never went to his dad's wedding, as he was against it, and mother said it was because he was a mother's boy. My father's parents looked upon my mother as their own child, always being there for her when she needed help and support; as my dad was their only child. There was nothing that my grandparents would not do for my mother, and you could see just how much she too loved them. Growing up, mother never really spoke about her mother, but she always had a picture of her on top of the china cabinet; where every birthday and Christmas she would place a rose next to her picture. I did not remember those early holiday years in Ramsgate that clearly, but I do remember when I was about four years of age sitting on the beach with my bucket and spade; as my father and mother helped me to build sandcastles. We would always go to Ramsgate at the same time every year for two weeks, which was in the industrial holidays of July to August. We would also go down on the odd weekend or so when my parents managed to get the same period of time off together.

Father started his working career as a bank clerk in one of the leading banks in Ramsgate, finally getting a managerial role in one of the company's banks in London's East End, where it was there that he met my mother. My mother worked for a busy ladies wear factory in the finance department; and often went into father's bank to pay money in from her company. It was there that father swept mother off her feet, and a few years after they married; I came along. I was told that my father was very old fashioned, and he courted my mother for about a year before asking her to marry him. Mother told me that every week without fail; he would bring her a bouquet of flowers; which were her favourite chrysanthemums, as well as sometimes bringing her a box of luxury chocolates. Mother also told me that at first she thought dad did not like her, as it took him so long to get his act together. It took him just over six months before he even kissed her, and she was beginning to give up, as she so longed for that first kiss. Mind you I knew she was only joking, as I knew my parents were just as much in love now; as they were all those years ago; as every time we were out they still held hands as father looked on like a proud peacock. I just loved those first few years of going to my grandparents, and spending time on the beach with them. As well as just sitting in the garden playing will my dolls, as I watched grandpa toddle about in the garden; and where he would stop and pull faces at me which always used to make me laugh.

I had started mothers and toddlers in the September of my 4th year, ready to get prepared for infant and junior school. I loved being in school, as I got to see a lot more children with whom I could play with, without going around their homes; as I used to play with the girl next door called Vicky who was not always a nice little girl. My mother would not let me go round to her house as often as I would have liked too, because one day she saw her pulling wings of butterflies, and pulling the legs off daddy longlegs which mother thought was so cruel. I did not mind too much however, because I did have friends at school; and I was quite content playing in the garden with my dolls.