Monday 27 May 2013

Here or there?

I am trying to determine today where I come from.....a simple task for most people but as a child I moved around so much that by the time we stopped I had lost a sense of having a home town.
I was born in woolwich, for years it was just the place on my passport because I never went there again. My parents lived on the other side of London at the time in hownslow near heathrow. Dad was in the army and working in woolwich at the time and I was born at the mother and babies army hospital, it no longer exists, but years ago when passing the sun in the sands roundabout dad pointed up towards shooters hill and said 'you were born up there'
Ironically years later in 1988 on the 23rd sept which was my parents anniversary too I would get married in woolwich registery office, I didn't want to marry where I lived in Lewisham  as the surrounding area wasnt so pretty and the inside of the woolwich registery office had a sweeping marble staircase and wood panelling in the hallways, much better for pics so I used my friends boyfriends address as mine.
In 1964 dad was posted to Singapore, I was only two or three but I do have memories of the time that we had there, just glimpses. I remember walking up a hill with my parents a bit in the distance in front of me. On recollection I can feel the distinct fear that I was going to lose them and get left behind and started crying, another memory is of looking at the moonlight through a bamboo woven roof as mum and dad said goodnight and gave me my toys...mum always said that this never happened but then one day remembered going to an island for a little holiday. I guess it was such a change for me that I remember those two incidents after arriving there. I also have a picture my dad took of me playing in a storm drain, I can remember him calling my name and turning to look and him taking the pic, I think the pic is on this blog somewhere.
So then Colchester, tip tree to be precise whe I remember the tonibell ice cream man coming and having measles and my mum giving me a Chrysler flavoured syrup for it which tasted lovely. I can still remember the layout of that bungalow and it was where I fell in love with the monkees at about age five when I used to walk next door to watch them because they had a tv and we didn't.
After Colchester aldershot, we lived in the army housing estate and that is where I met Jayne, who I remain in contact with now, again pics else where on the blog. We were both onlies but our parents we add opposite ends of the scale mine older and jaynes very young but our parents became friends and remained in contact for years, both our dads were called Peter too.
I went to primary school there, it was my first day at school and not long after I had a big argument with a girl and hid in the Wendy house refusing  to come out. Later I would be in a class that made a huge wire and papier mâché dinosaur and I so wanted to take it home but mum wouldn't let me. Susan had fillings and I wanted some too and mrs o Brian's son used to come in a wheelchair with her and we gave her and him apples. We caught ladybirds off the bushes on the estate and kept them in jam jars with holes in the lid and a bit of greenery.
One day the dog a cocker spaniel got out and my mother ran through the estate trying to catch h, one day she disappeared altogether and a few days later we found out that she was living with a family around the corner and got her back.
Dad taught me  to ride a bike and Jayne and I would spend the day up in the woods and at the playground on the swings singing boom bang a bang bang.
At the military tattoo dad would be in a tent taking people's blood to let them know what blood group they were....would never happen now!! Dd used to come home for lunch in his uniform, just after I had finished watching with mother and around the time I would listen with mother, he would sweep me up and kiss me and i could feel the coarseness of his starchy green jacket.
I also remember one day going to auntie lily jaynes mum and fainting, I later found out it was  the day that mum  went into hospital. For a while it was just me and dad and I would stay at jaynes sometimes. One day dad took me to see mum on the way we stopped to see some donkeys and dad took a picture of me with one, we continued and all I remember is feeling a bit scared, there was a woman with a black beehive type hairdo walking down the corridor laughing into her brush with a friend, mum was subdued and I didn't really understand what was going on....it was another episode of manic depression, now known as bi polar.
When we left aldershot I thought it was for another town and then later another...but no! We moved to Gt Yarmouth in Norfolk because dad got a job there in the haematology department at the hospital.
 I didn't realise this at the time but he and mum decided to settle somewhere for my education. We
didn't know anyone in the area and as I went to one side of the country Jayne and her parents headed off to the other in Plymouth!!!
Initially we lived in a holiday camp at mundersley and I didn't go to school, I guess because the job was ready but the house wasnt. After a short while we went to caister, second avenue right opposite the beach. I did start to attend school there but only for a short time until we moved to bradwell and I started at home field infant school.
I was new not local and it was the final year before we moved to the junior school. My teacher was mrs peek a large woman who wore a brown tweed ish suit and was very stern. I quickly worked out that she had a table of favourites, lee I remember was on that table and Deborah who was meant to look after me but ended up bullying me.
I sat infront of mrs peeks desk where she could see me with Alan fitzgerald, a naughty boy which meant I must have been too. She shouted at me a lot, I was practically deaf and later went in to have adenoids out tonsils out and grommets in. Another fainting day when mum and dad left me there.
Mrs peek was awful, tore my work up infront of me, told me off in assembly made me stand in the front, told the other kids to go and left me there on my own. I waited and waited and decided she had forgotten me I crept back into class and when she saw me she bellowed, 'did i tell you to comeback ' and sent me back to the hall, the secretary found me crying in the corridor and took me back.
I walked all the way home across the village because I had left my book at home, mum complained that she was giving me books I had read when I was five! I have never ever hated a teacher so much. Years later mum was astounded to hear what she had been like, she had been the perfect teacher in their eyes, from how she interacted with them, she knew I was deaf but still got angry when I didn't answer straight away.
I met new kids at my next school in the village not least Debra dye, she lived on the next road to me and we spent loads of time together in and out of school. We made blue Peter rooms for our dolls out of card board boxes, used make up for the first time. Debra and I drifted when we went to grammar school. I went to see her in the eighties as I heard she had a brain tumour, she died about 15 years ago.
Oriel grammar school was ok, I could have made better use of my opportunities but I didn't, never one for studying or revising. I had lots of parties and they were always well attended, initally at home and later in the local church hall, mum was the booking clerk which was very helpful and dad would come as the appropriate adult. Otherwise friday night was spent down the ocean rooms, doing our disco moves. I left in 1981 after spending the summer working at woolworths and at tiffanys nightclub on the seafront.
So then I landed in Lewisham and have been here ever since, long than I have lived anywhere but I don't call it my home town, gt Yarmouth was where I remember growing up, my roots go back on dads side in Sussex near Hastings and mum in the Lake District and I do feel a sense of belonging there although in never lived there.on Facebook I have hometown as gt Yarmouth but should it be Lewisham?