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The Silver Cross pram showsÌýmy parentsÌýwanted the very best for me.
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We lived near enough to London for visits as a treat. The drive up was on single carriageway A roads, parking was no problem, and you were allowed to feed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
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You could wander up to the low fence at Southend airport and hang over it to see the planes more closely. The one in the picture is a Bristol Freighter, run by British Air Ferries.
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My mother dressed me up warmly and put my legs in plastic bags held in place by elastic bands (which you can just see!).
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Food was bought at the village post office stores, the local butcher, from the milkman who also carried most staples such as cheese, eggs, cream, orange juice, or the bread van.
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My story begins long before I was born. My mother’s grandfather ran away from his Jewish family in Riga, Poland, and after a series of adventures arrived penniless in London, then converted to Christianity. That side of the family lived in Ilford.
When I was two, we moved to a wonderful house in an Essex village. We had gardens and paddocks extending to two acres, with trees, shrubs, old farm buildings and plenty of secret places for a child to play in. Although my father was brought up in East London, I think he was really a frustrated farmer, because bit by bit the menagerie grew.
Because of the Christian beliefs the family held at the time, our circle of friends was limited to others of the same persuasion. We had no radio or television, and chapel attendance was intensive – every weekday evening, Saturday mornings and up to five times on a Sunday.
I went to school at a nearby private Prep school called Elm Green in Little Baddow, which I started early at the age of four. Within a very few years I was walking to and from school on my own, a distance of half a mile or so, but a journey involving a main road, footpaths and a dark and rather scary wood.
Planes were always a fascination, I was in the Airfix Generation after all. From the age of six or seven I would build plastic models of aircraft involving lots of glue and paint going where it shouldn't, but I was happy for hours.
This is included in the Met Office's list of "severe winters", and most of us were under snow from Boxing Day to early March. I had just turned 5 and as far as I was concerned it was great fun.
When we were born in 1957, the Today50 Generation arrived on the scene only 12 years from the end of WWII (and to put it in context, the Falklands War was 25 years ago). Peacetime conscription to National Service was still running until 1960. The end of all rationing did not happen until 1954. Small wonder then that there were still strong influences from the war-time years.
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Regular shopping was done mostly within our village or the next one, with occasional trips all the way to Chelmsford (7 miles) for clothes or special items.
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