1953-1963

Born on Saturday 24 January 1953 at 35 Chesterfield Road, Copnor, Portsmouth. It was tea time, and in order to get Dad out of the way he was sent to the paper shop to get the pink Sports Edition of the Evening News.

Early memories include trips to Westliff-on-Sea, via steam train from Liverpool Street I suppose, and a strong recall of a fair-ground ride with spinning cups at Southend. We liked the beach and in order to get to a sandy beach (and away from the pebbles of Southsea) we endured precarious trips in a Ford Prefect to West Wittering, with the roadside littered by overheating black cars. Dad later purchased a poor-man's Rolls Royce - a Triumph Mayflower, before moving on to a wonderful Morris Minor Traveller.

After my sister was born in 1954, I remember going to the local Baptist Chuch Hall for ante-natal clinics where we shared tiny bottles of concentrate orange juice, oranges being still rationed. It is fair to say that my early years still feel as though they were in black and white. Photos were monochrome, and buildings were drab. I am still enthralled by how cities like Portsmouth and London seem so much more colourful today, and probably influenced my hippy inclinations later.

After attending Westover Road Infants School, with my teacher Miss Mellor and friends including Stephen Hoskins, I remember being told off for asking for a Christmas tree in the classroom. I moved on to Langstone Road Junior School where I was included in the black book for bad spelling. I just think I was ahead of my time in predicting text messaging.

My interest in the cubs and scouts grew with the 28th St Cuthberts Troop when Roger Leonnard and I in Kingfisher Patrol won the District Cooking Competition three years in a row. It was with the Scouts I made my first visit to the USA (for £65) when we camped in the field just next to the Woodstock Music Festival.

Innocent