If you've come on this page to try to find out my age, tough. It's in the genealogy downloads. Suffice to say I was born in Canterbury just after war broke out, no not the Crimean but World War 2. My father Alfred, was in a reserved occupation and so was unable to join the forces (he could drive a bus) and so I lived at home with my mother, Kathleen Ann, my dad and my much older sister, Jose Anne. We also had an aunt living with us, Daisy, whose husband, my mother's brother, was serving in the army.

My earliest memory is of my sister and I being thrown down into an Anderson shelter by my mother during an unannounced bombing raid. My father was extremely lucky, one of the 1000lb bombs exploded next door but one, killing a number of people. My father was going in the back door of our wheel chair bound next door neighbour at the time to make sure she was alright, this was right next door to where the bomb went off. All he received was a bump on the head. An old school friend (David Fry) on reading this item, sent me a copy of a page from a German diary about the raid.

Enough of the war. I was educated (yes I was), at the Methodist primary school and later at a Church of England Secondary School. But it didn't do me any good and so I ended up as a mechanic at a local bus company.

Things were good but money was bad, then my father had a heart attack and was nursed by a young lady who fell for me. Literally, for I was visiting my father prior to going roller skating. She stood on a skate and ended up under the bed.

To cut a long story short in 1963 she, Helen, became my wife and we settled down in Herne Bay and started raising a family. Firstly a son, Gareth then a daughter Maria, and finally another son, Carl.

Being fed up with getting my hands dirty (at work) and not trusting a bunch of consultants who were about to give us a bonus scheme, I decided to join them to make sure they didn't pull any fancy tricks, and so I ended up in the newly formed Work Study department and after a year or so became Work Study Officer.

This position after a move to Staffordshire to take over a department at another bus company became Senior Work Study Engineer and then Engineering Management Services Engineer. It sounded high flying but it was just another name for 'whipping boy'.

I think that's enough of a life history. I would give a potted history of my own family but they're old enough and ugly enough to do it for themselves.

Carl, Steve, Maria and Gareth

My Father Alfred and his Brother George

In London with my mother, father and sister (about 1949).

Terry {his mother was Doris nee Stapenhill}, John (Jose's husband), Jose (my sister) and Edna (Terry's wife)

Jose (my sister), Me, Helen (my wife) and John (Jose's husband) and no, my tie's not in my beer!

Me recapturing my youth. Yes, it is me at the controls and no we didn't crash!

Maria and Steve's House, (with three cars in the drive. That's Gareth on the tractor cutting the grass and Steve walking towards the bottom of the garden.

Carl's house (the reddish one nearest the camera). His garden is the area by it with all the trees.