I was about 5 when they married and we lived in the midlands for a time. Stepfather initially working for one of the car giants and later having his own taxi before the call came to move to the coast and take over the running of the “Guest House” so mother and I were returning to our roots as it were. I had almost forgotten, I actually went to Convent school when I was 2 years old, a superfluity of nuns were the teachers in a converted house further up the seafront. Apparently only until I was 4 but no real memories apart from the fact that I do not believe in any gods so the nuns obviously had little effect on my early years-unless of course the nuns were atheists.
A family highlight of that particular time was when the Guest House was closed for the Christmas period in the early 1950’s and my grandparents, my mother and I actually went to America to visit my grandmothers sister and family in one of the biggest cities on the east coast of the USA! We traveled over the Atlantic Ocean on the Queen Mary and returned on the Queen Elizabeth, or maybe vice versa, not sure. My memories were threefold. The first was seeing people ice skating in a huge outside stadium and the second was seeing a dead stag tied to the front of a pick up truck! Apparently the hunting season. The third was seeing was seeing Father Christmas in a huge department store and receiving a silver dollar which I kept for some years. Suffice to say that the USA had little influence on me apart from maybe the odd nightmare of seeing the dead stag flopping around on the bonnet of the pick up!
Queen Elizabeth 
Queen Mary 
The earliest memories of primary school were school dinners which we were almost forced to eat and I vaguely remember mother being called to the school as I refused to eat the vegetables and the desserts. This resulted in my taking packed lunches from that day forth, usually plain bread and Marmite or brown sauce sandwiches with the crusts cut off and a Wagon Wheel, today they look no bigger than a pound coin! And I still do not eat vegetables!
That’s about as much as I can recall from the primary school days although I do vaguely remember disappointing the whole family by failing to reach the dizzy heights of grammar school by joining most of the kids of working class families at secondary school. But that was when my education really started, first fight, first drag on a ciggy, first kiss, oh, and some maths, English tuition etc thrown in.
The beach, a stones throw from the “Guest House” about 5 years ago.
The beach much more than 5 years ago.
