Chapter 1
As these things are measured, I have been quite a successful person in life, and I am often asked about the secret of my success. I would have to say that it's my confidence with telling people the truth, being honest when you know that telling might hurt them but being considerate when you do which lies at the root of why I have found good fortune in the things that have interested me. I wasn't always this confident though, and looking back, I can trace that turning point back to a 2-week period in my youth. But to illustrate my story better, I should start with a brief history of my life to that date.
I was born in 1928, in Windsor, just outside London and my parents could not be more different as people. My father was a labourer who had come back from the great war of 1914-1918 a broken man, according to my mother, and which made him a bit of a drinker. He was a few years older than my mother, she had known him as a young girl, before going onto marry him when he got back from service.
Now I am older I think it's a miracle I was conceived at all as my memories from him an early age revolve around my mother alone with my father only occasionally appearing. When he did deem to make an appearance, he reeked of booze and was not really a nice guy to be around.
From my recollection he never beat my mother but she did do her best to shield me from him, particularly when he was in a sour mood, which was most of the time.
My mother could not be more different. She was a warm, very loving person and I felt her presence constantly. She was a homemaker but could turn her hand to most things and I think this was where I get my creative side from.
Our lives were to change in the winter of 1934. It was a particularly cold winter and things were pretty tight financially with work hard to come by. That didn't stop my father from drinking though and it was a constant source of tension and arguments in the house.
One particular night, I heard my parents in a particularly vicious fight after I had been sent to bed.
"Stan, for god's sake, did you take the housekeeping money out of the jar? I can't believe you've left us nothing! Can't you just stop?" I heard my mother shout at my father in the living room.
My father was drunk and therefore incoherent in his reply but I did understand the smash of something breaking against the wall after his response.
"I cant talk to you when you are like this, I am going to bed and you better sleep down here, I'm not sleeping with you when you're like this but I will tell you this Sonny Jim, you had better have an idea of how we are going to replace this money by the morning because I am at the end of my tether!"
I heard a door slam and my mother coming upstairs. I pretended to be asleep, as I knew she would check on me before she retired to her room herself and once she had done that, she entered her own room and shut the door.
The following morning, I was awake early and went downstairs to get ready for school. I knew it was likely that I would be hungry until teatime and that we probably would have no food in the house, so I was thinking of how I might try and steal an apple off the greengrocers stall on the way to school to tide me over when I tripped over my father.
He was lying on the floor with an empty whisky bottle in his hand and at first I thought he had just passed out but then the smell hit me and as my eyes accustomed to the light in the room, I could see his face was in a pile of vomit. He was blue and cold to my touch, his glassy eyes telling me that this was no ordinary drunken stupor.
"Dad?" I said as I tried to shake him awake.
I knew I had to fetch my mother immediately and bounded upstairs to get her, "Mum, Mum! Come quick, something's wrong with Dad!" I shouted
Her door opened and she appeared in her dressing gown, hurrying straight passed me and down the stairs.
"Stan? Stan!" she cried as she saw my father's body but even then, she must have known it was too late.
My mother rushed me next door to our neighbours, Elizabeth and John Miller, who had moved in about 2 years previous. They were about 5 or 6 years younger than my parents but my mother, and Liz as she liked to be known, had struck up a strong friendship straight away and were always in each other's kitchens.
I was bundled into the living room as my hysterical mother explained through sobs and hushed tones to Liz and John what had happened. John went with my mother and left me with Liz for the rest of the day. As a boy, you don't really know what's happening in the adult world around you, but I guess now that John helped my mother get a doctor and alert the authorities to my fathers demise.
The next few months were a bit of a blur if I am honest.
As my father hadn't been a constant part of my life, I didn't really feel any different other than knowing he wasn't coming back. They say kids are more resilient than you think to this sort of thing and I guess that is the case as I went back into my routines pretty quickly. My mother on the other hand, was left in a right state.
Obviously, she would have to find a job to help support us and had luckily found a position as a housekeeper in a well to do household about 30 minutes by bus from our house. This position however did come with its downsides as she would work long hours, which meant she couldn't spend the time she used to with me.
She was constantly worried about me though so asked Liz if she would keep an eye on me after school until she got home and so I ended up spending quite a bit of time at the Millers.
During this period in my life, I naturally ended up getting quite close to John and I would often end up in his shed workshop with him showing me how to use certain tools and how to work with my hands on metal and wood, which is something I continued to love to do all through my life.
So, things started to settle down into a new routine and life seemed pretty good.
That was until Hitler decided to invade Poland.
Immediately in the aftermath of Britain declaring war in 1939, conscription started and as he was under 41 years of age, John was drafted into the forces. I sensed the shift in my environment immediately as Liz become much more quiet and often she would have this faraway look in her eyes, staring into space.
She was distraught when he left for basic training and then deployment. Naturally, I then became the centre of two women's worlds as they needed to focus on something other than the nightmare of the world around them.
Again, for the next few years, things settled into a new pattern and the three of us spent a lot of time together in the evenings, keeping abreast of places where John was deployed, anxiously waiting for any titbit of news on the radio about where the conflict was at its heaviest.
One day in 1943, I came home from school to find my mother waiting at the gate for me.
"Hello Mum, why are you not in work?" I asked, "We had better go inside love." she said
It was in that moment that I knew the worst had happened and that John wouldn't be coming back.
It turned out that the ship he had been stationed on had been sunk by a German U boat and he had perished along with 148 of his comrades.
I felt desperately sorry for Liz, but also for myself as John had been the only real male presence in my life who had given me any kind of attention and direction. Once again, life for us was in turmoil.
Liz leaned on Mum quite a bit over the following couple of years and until once again, she learned to smile and laugh a bit like she used to. By that point in my life, I had just turned 18 at the time, girls and women seemed to suddenly be everywhere and impossible to ignore.
