My earliest memory is examining the underside of the rear axle of a timber lorry. I recall it pulling away and watching the axle go round as the bed of the lorry passed over me.
We moved away from that house next to the timber yard when I was two.
In the next house my mum fell down the stairs and I stood and stared at her as she asked for help. I didn't know what to do.
A few days later it was my 3rd birthday and dad did the birthday cake because mum was still in hospital. He asked how I wanted the cake decorated and I said with Smarties. He said that was silly but I insisted so he stuck Smarties to this iced cake. I can see the cake clearly and I can remember him saying he thought it spoiled the cake. (I was 3, he was 43, what was the cake expert? Thank you.)
We left that house when I was five. I could write all night about my memories from living there: the various dogs we owned, being stung by a wasp in my welly, the lad up the road with a real working toy steam traction engine, the posh kid with the tree house, trying to convince another child to eat laburnum seeds, collecting berries in plastic boxes from the hedgerows, the big hill, the allotments at the end of the garden, my brother lighting magnesium ribbon tied to the garden fence, my brother getting caught trying to put the resulting fire out, putting my fist through my Etch-a-Sketch because it was too hard to do, burning 'f u c k' into the wooden clothes horse with a magnifying glass, telling one of the dogs to steal my mum's toast and it did, the horrific children's story book that still feeds my nightmares, Santa coming down the road on his sleigh in the snow late on Xmas Eve (it really happened: apparently it was the Round Table or Rotary on a horse-pulled milk float), the mobile shop (like a removals van with a grocer's inside), my mum washing her hair and running across the road to the hairdressers to get them to style it, the green and silver lipstick in the window of the hairdressers, the butler sink in the huge kitchen.
I also remember being taken down the HUGE steps to the front door when we first moved in: so I was 2 then.
We moved away from that house next to the timber yard when I was two.
In the next house my mum fell down the stairs and I stood and stared at her as she asked for help. I didn't know what to do.
A few days later it was my 3rd birthday and dad did the birthday cake because mum was still in hospital. He asked how I wanted the cake decorated and I said with Smarties. He said that was silly but I insisted so he stuck Smarties to this iced cake. I can see the cake clearly and I can remember him saying he thought it spoiled the cake. (I was 3, he was 43, what was the cake expert? Thank you.)
We left that house when I was five. I could write all night about my memories from living there: the various dogs we owned, being stung by a wasp in my welly, the lad up the road with a real working toy steam traction engine, the posh kid with the tree house, trying to convince another child to eat laburnum seeds, collecting berries in plastic boxes from the hedgerows, the big hill, the allotments at the end of the garden, my brother lighting magnesium ribbon tied to the garden fence, my brother getting caught trying to put the resulting fire out, putting my fist through my Etch-a-Sketch because it was too hard to do, burning 'f u c k' into the wooden clothes horse with a magnifying glass, telling one of the dogs to steal my mum's toast and it did, the horrific children's story book that still feeds my nightmares, Santa coming down the road on his sleigh in the snow late on Xmas Eve (it really happened: apparently it was the Round Table or Rotary on a horse-pulled milk float), the mobile shop (like a removals van with a grocer's inside), my mum washing her hair and running across the road to the hairdressers to get them to style it, the green and silver lipstick in the window of the hairdressers, the butler sink in the huge kitchen.
I also remember being taken down the HUGE steps to the front door when we first moved in: so I was 2 then.
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