Easter, Christmas and In between

Easter

Easter is a wonderful celebratory time of the year in the Christian calendar.  And these celebrations take many forms.  Here in North America and probably in England, a lot of emphasis is placed upon chocolate eggs.  That was not always the case.

In London, at the time I’m referring to, one way to mark the calendar was for enterprising individuals to roam the streets selling little-live-day-old chicks; Sweet, fluffy, chirping chicks. This was done by means of a man carrying a wide-narrow wooden tray hung around his neck by a leather strap.  Within the box would be oodles of these darling yellow creatures vying for attention.  Anyone of which could be purchased for the paltry sum of a few pence.

It so happened that when this individual made it to our street, LS was outside playing.  She was captivated, as any child would be, by what she heard then saw.  As the teller of this tale, I do not know how it happened that she was also in possession of enough currency to make a purchase (there was not a lot of it to go around) but cash she had, and soon she had one little live chick in her possession!

How sweet!  Well yes and no.  One day old chicks don’t get to be two day old chicks unless they are cared for and preferable by someone who knows what he or she is doing.  Dad did his best to explain to LS these facts of life by telling her that the little baby chick needed his mother hen to keep it warm.   We didn’t have a mother hen, but fortunately the woman who lived behind our house (let’s call her Mrs. Smith) raised chickens and she had lots of mother hens.  Yes, in the middle of London she raised chickens.  But then lots of people raised rabbits and chickens.  Food was hard to come by.

So, it was arranged that Mrs. Smith would care for the little yellow bundle of fluff.

Easy now to understand why LS spent so much time atop the bomb shelter.  From this vantage point LS could see into Mrs. Smith’s back yard with all the little chickens running hither and yon.  Daily she would watch her little chick as it grew and matured.   She loved her little feathered friend and like any BFF she gave it a name!

Time goes by

One day, whilst doing her daily inspection LS happened upon some valuable treasure.  She found some dentures just lying there.  What a strange place to find dentures!  She knew they were valuable because during the wartime everything was valuable. Re-cycling was not a fad but a way of life.  Nothing was thrown away.

When Mum saw these shiny teeth she got very excited.  “Great” she said, “I’ll take those to Charley Clarkes. They’ve gotta be worf a few bob”.  With that she tossed them onto a pile of dirty laundry. 

So the story rests until Dad came home from work.  Perhaps I should mention that as a young man Dad had lots of dental problems and as a consequence was, like George Washington, equipped with a full set of choppers.  Of course his weren’t wooden they were – well you know.

It was pretty obvious as soon as he came through the door. When, in full cockney language splendour, albeit somewhat hindered by the lack of dental enunciation aids, he bellowed:  “I can’t find my FFFFFing false teef”!

Thankfully, Mum had been too busy to get to Charley Clarkes, so all ended well. It seems that on the previous evening a very loud tom cat had been serenading on the bomb shelter so Mum had tossed a handy glass of water in its direction to make it leave.  Well it did leave, but so did the teeth that were soaking in the glass of water.

Ah yes, life goes on.

Christmas

Soon another wonderful celebration in the Christian calendar rolled around; Christmas, a time of stockings for Santa to fill, a time of gifting, a time of feasting.

All those things are maybe in your memories – but they’re not in mine!

I vaguely remember stockings at this time but it could have been some other time.  The ones I recall at best contained a colouring book and some crayons with the obligatory piece of coal in the toe.  As for gifting one to another, well, that was a completely foreign concept not practiced in our house. There were a few Christmases that occurred during the war and they often came at times of great food shortages. 

When it came to feasting, rationing controlled every aspect of our lives. An adult was allowed 3 ounces of meat per week – that’s like trying to make a very small hamburger patty last seven days.  Occasionally the butcher would have what was known as offal; yes you’re right that sounds like “awful”, but when we could get it, kidneys and liver were a great treat.

However, the particular Christmas that I refer to here was a time of great feasting.  You see the little teeny weeny yellow chick had grown to be a plump and juicy chicken.  It was retrieved from Mrs. Smith’s.  Somehow its little neck was wrung.  Mum plucked its feathers.  Dad cooked it. We all ate it.  Well not all.  LS refused to partake in what she considered to be cannibalism.  How could she eat her best friend?

But as Dad said: “Never give a name to something you intend to eat”!

GAMES

Games

Some childhood games changed because of the war, others were merely dependent on the one common denominator available to children at any time: they all involved “imagination”.

 

Wartime Tank

Although I loved to run and jump and skip I had another superior game piece - I had my doll’s pram!   I no longer primly pushed this miniature version of a Silver Cross beauty, that was a leftover from my “only child” more affluent times.  It now served a more timely purpose. Let me explain.

The hood moved up and over.  So what!  You might say.  Well, this made it a perfectly ideal tank.  Once the hood was raised just a little, I would sit inside facing forward (a bit of a squeeze).  Then, a boy as the driver pushed the carriage , I would be the forward gunner peering and poking my toy gun through the slit of a raised hood. 

This all happened at breakneck speeds along the streets surrounding our house.  What fun!

This pram became a hand-me-down, but it never again saw the kind of play that it had during the war.

The Secret Tunnel

This was a game that I was not really involved with, as their babysitter I took very little interest in what my younger siblings were doing.  Obviously, it was an event that must have occurred right under my nose, but I was not even aware of its existence until many years later.

To understand this game you need to imagine the layout of the lower floor of the small row house that we lived in.  You entered by the front door, and to your right was a room that at one time served as a living room but with a growing family was then being used as a bedroom by LS and me.  Further onto your right was the bedroom proper which overlooked the back yard.  This was where Mum, Dad and my brothers LB and LLB slept.  Down three short steps and you reached the kitchen and scullery, and an exit door to the back yard.

THIS MAY HELP DESCRIBE THE LAYOUT

As you can imagine the main bedroom was a crowded affair, but there was a small narrow cupboard at the end of one bed. 

The whole point of “Secret Tunnel” was that LS, aged six years, convinced LB, aged four years that a tunnel ran from this cupboard to the back yard.  To prove her point she would put LLB who was about two years old at the time, into the cupboard and tell LB to leave the room, run down the stairs to the back yard where he would find LLB waiting for him. 

It never failed!

While LB was busy running, LS would grab LLB from the cupboard and lower him out the window to the back yard!  The natural follow up to this was that LB wanted to travel through the secret tunnel.  She would oblige by putting him in the cupboard with the instructions to look for the secret entrance.   I understand he would be in there for hours.

What makes this story so poignant is that LB was never told about the true secret of the tunnel until he was a grown man!

Best to Keep Moving

As you can gather from the previous story, LS had, and still has, wonderful organizational skills coupled with a great imagination.  During my time as official babysitter these skills came in really useful.  I could just escape somewhere to read my book with the secure knowledge that all three charges were well cared for and playing happily.

Whether such was the case in the following story I leave you to decide.

For this you need a little background information about the streets of London.  You’ve no doubt heard the tales of London being paved in gold.   The confusion with this arises because here in North America, the “pavement” is the part of the roadway meant for vehicles.  In England the pavement is the part that people use, known in North America as the “sidewalk”.  In some parts of London the paving stones used for the “pavement” were often flecked with little gold coloured pieces of something or other. Hence; “paved with gold”.

The roadway on the other hand was often paved with blocks of wood.  Yes wood.  Not just any wood, but wood soaked in creosote or tar.

London is a very big city and a very old city.  The wooden blocks used for the roads dated back to when horses were the main means of transportation.  Naturally, over time these roads were all replaced with asphalt, but in many incidences the wooden roads were merely paved over leaving the blocks underneath.

So now we come to the time of these stories.  The authorities had no immediate need to update the roadways; Hitler was doing it for them! And the bonus for the good citizens of London was “free firewood”!

Dad collected these abandon blocks whenever he could.  I’m sure that the burning tar did wonders for any of us that had lung congestion and it certainly added to the outside atmosphere that contributed to the smog and London’s nickname “The Big Smoke”.

But let me get back to this story.  Let’s presume that there were some of those discarded BRICKS lying around, and let’s further presume that LS was imagining what one could possibly do with them?  

Simple really; Invent a game called “Keep Moving”.

LB aged four and LS aged six have climbed on top of the bomb shelter.  LLB at age two can’t quite make the climb but nevertheless LS will find a way for him to be involved.  He is told to run through the shelter from one opening to the other and there would be a surprise for him when he reached the backyard.  In the meantime, LB armed with a spare ROAD BRICK is lying down leaning over the edge and is being directed by LS to drop the brick behind LLB when he emerges from the doorway below.  The timing was supposed to be that as it fell behind him it would scare him. I bet!

It was a difficult manoeuvre to accomplish, so required that LLB make the run through a number of times.   Without the promised reward, LLB was getting very tired of following directions, and there was likelihood that LB was not being cooperative.  Suffice to say the brick eventually dropped and hit LLB square on the top of his head!

As I said “It’s Best to Keep Moving!

The Blitz

The Blitz

It’s well to remember that most of these stories take place with the war as a backdrop, and to acknowledge that these war years were not all chocolate bars, trains and Downton Abbey footman.  

It’s hard to forget the BLITZ of 1940 (from the German word Blitzkrieg meaning a violent surprise offensive by massed air forces).  That was the period when Hitler let loose his mighty Luftwaffe over the skies of London.   For sure it was a surprise and it was definitely violent! 

If you really want to know more about this time then a little GOOGLE search will get you all manner of serious and detailed information. My stories will be less detailed and will be merely based on my memories. 

Suffice for me to say that Londoners are a hardy bunch and our family was no exception

It might have been at that time or it could have been later when the government realised that perhaps we needed a little protection from these heavenly handouts!  As a consequence brick shelters were erected on streets.  If you had a grassy patch behind your house you had an Anderson Shelter installed. It was half sunk into the ground and built of curved sheets of steel.  In a nice dry environment these would have been a great idea. See picture! 

England however does not fit that description and being flooded out was a regular occurrence.

If, like us, you had a concrete yard with no grass that could be dug up then you were the happy recipient of a brick surface shelter with a concrete roof.  Flooding was not such an issue for these – the rain ran in one door and out the other.  The main problem with these was the workmanship; bad construction and substandard mortar.  Some of them collapsed without even smelling a bomb!

Now that you've seen the outside here's a peek at the cozy inside:

It may be worth remembering that our particular shelter is featured in a couple of upcoming stories; one that involves LS and a set of dentures, another that shows the happy go lucky play of all three siblings.

As a family we were very happy to have this shelter because it did double, sometimes triple duty.  For Mum it was a storage shed for items that she really did not know what to do with. For LS, LB and LLB it was a playroom both inside and on the roof.  I found it to be a quiet retreat for reading a book. One thing I do remember however is that it was never ever used to shelter us from bombs!  From my recollection the shelter of choice for us children was under the kitchen table!

So to get back to the BLITZ:  Saturday, September 7^th 1940 was a typical London day – CLOUDY!   Londoners were nervous and on edge.  France had fallen and the threat of a German invasion hung heavily in the air.

It’s been said that if Hitler had chosen this time to send his troops across the Channel they would have been met by the Home Guard and the ARP!  The Home Guard was a group of older men who were too old to join the army. (They were nicknamed "Dad's Army".  I think there was a BBC television show called this at one time.)
The ARP stood for the Air Raid Patrol.  They had no uniforms but they had helmets for their heads and some other interesting equipment that can be seen HERE. Generally, what they did was to keep looking at the sky to see if enemy planes were coming over.  Their other big job was to run up and down the streets in the evening yelling at people to close the drapes so that no light could be seen from the sky. It’s not difficult to imagine that if these groups had come head to head with Hitler’s Panzer divisions I for one would probably be speaking German today!

But, instead of that, Hitler decided to soften-up the Londoners before parachuting his Panzers.  Between five and six o'clock that Saturday evening, just as my Dad was about to tuck into his sausages and mash, prior to his pint at the local, the sky became black with almost 1000 bombers and fighter airplanes as they flew up the Thames estuary toward London where they dumped bomb after bomb after bomb on the city below.

For 57 consecutive nights, from September 7^th until November 2^nd 1940 the bombs rained down!  In London 43,000 people were killed, 51,000 seriously injured and 88,000 slightly injured.

Many houses on our street were completely demolished, but our family was very lucky, no one was injured and no one died. But I was scared. 

This occuured in BALHAM - which is on the south side of Thames - close to where we lived.

Every night, like a good little girl I would say my prayers and beg God to kill Hitler.  Each morning I would go outside where I would see scattered all around large and small pieces of shrapnel, (pieces of metal from the bombs that had been dropped) strewn all over the sidewalk. After the fire blitz, when incendiary bombs had been used, there were pieces of charred and burnt objects floating down from the sky. We kids collected the shrapnel and even vied with our friends as to who had the biggest or best looking piece.  Apart from collecting shrapnel the war also influenced the games we played. 

There was no T.V. to watch so a great deal of time was spent outside, running and jumping. But the games that are worth telling about involved imagination and . . . well, I’ll leave it at that. These games will be the subject of an upcoming post.

Evacuation to Wiltshire – the Manservant

Much of the action in these tales takes place during the period of WWII. 

When war was initially declared there was much panic and concern regarding the children of London.  It didn’t take long for the powers that be to decide that the men will tote the guns and the women will run the factories and the children will be sent out of harm’s way.  Called Operation Pied Piper, millions of people, most of them children, were shipped to rural areas in Britain as well as overseas to Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. 

You’ll notice the underlined words in the above paragraph.  Yes, most of them were children, but some were like my Mum who had come very close to losing part of her brood and under no circumstances was she about to do so again. She insisted on being part of the evacuation process.

I would have been about 7 years of age and LS a small toddler when we made our first foray into wartime evacuation. Oh yes, we did it many times, after all “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”!

There must have been preparations but I don’t remember them but I do recall the noise of the train station, the pushing and the shoving, the crowds of children and people.  The uncomfortable cardboard box strung with string around my body added to the confusion and fright.

I can’t honestly say whether it was on this train trip or another of our evacuation flights, with hindsight it probably occurred later after a long period of “sweets and candies” deprivation. Nevertheless, the memory stands out very clearly: when I, along with other children, was given a chocolate bar wrapped in purple paper, I could not believe it was all for me – the whole bar just for me. It must have made a tremendous impression, because to this day I still love “Cadburys”!

But I digress.  We arrived in the area of Wiltshire know as Castle Combe.  If you’re thinking “Eh I know that name from somewhere”, you’re right. The movie Doctor Doolittle was filmed there in the 1960’s.

From my very young and rickety memory I gather we were billeted in a large Manor house said to belong to the Wills Tobacco Company. It must have been very large because I’ve always thought of it as a Castle!  I think it might have been what is now The Manor House Hotel shown in this picture:

It was not a hotel at that time, it was a one family dwelling.  As you can see from the image this is a very imposing structure, especially to a young mum who was used to living in a one bedroom flat, ground floor, no grass just a stone area at the back called “the yard”.  

I’m not going to pretend that I remember everything about our stay but I do recall at least one meal.  We were seated at a long, long table which to my young eyes looked to be about the size of our “backyard”.  It was highly polished and shiny and we three, Mum, LS and I, were the only occupants sitting at one end.  This was our first introduction to what I now think must have been a footman (I’ve watched Downton Abbey).  We were served our meals by this very stately figure.  

Wow, you may be thinking, how terrific!  Not so.  To my very cockney, very impressionable and totally overwhelmed mother it was scary.  More scary than the bombs back home, you say?  I guess so.  Fortunately, the trains ran both ways and before you could say: “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner” we were home.

Keeping up Appearances

Keeping up Appearances

This very short post to attempts to explain (to those they may be following) why this site keeps changing its appearance.  

For me, doing this is not just the writing, but the trying to figure out the technical aspects of publishing this blog.  I’ve been experimenting with the different Themes that are offered by Blogger, the program I’m using, in an effort to find one that suits the subject matter.

So far I’ve not been happy with any of them, but I did discover that I can use an image of my own. 

That meant that the writing was put on hold while I put together the HEADER that I’m using now.  I think this speaks more to Cockneys and the City of London, with its coat of arms and familiar landmarks.

The way things are now will stay until such time as I change my mind again.  After all, I’m still figuring out how to put all those lovely contact bits down the side.

The Little Red Tricycle

From time to time I will recycle (pun intended) stories that I have used elsewhere.  The following is one that I presented at Toastmasters to fulfil a “Morals” story assignment. The listeners were given five “moral” choices to select from.  You’ll understand that it follows naturally from the “Run in with a car” event. 

•                     A Dad Will Do Anything for his Daughter

•                     Persistence Pays Off

•                     A Father’s promise is Golden

•                     All of the Above

•                     Other (Size doesn’t matter.)

My father was small of stature but large of heart.

Fellow Toastmasters - sit back- relax. I’m about to tell you a true story that took place long, long ago - before the earth cooled, when I was a young 6 year old child.

This story has a moral and I want you to look at the choices I’ve displayed and at the end I’ll ask you which one you think fits.

The previous summer I had been involve in a bad car accident and sustained serious injuries to my left foot. The summer of the story I had been given a beautiful red tricycle which became my therapy of choice. I rode it all the time. Unfortunately, as much as I loved my trike - I was only six years old and careless at looking after it. I left it outside the row house we lived in - and you guessed it - my favourite toy was stolen. I was devastated.

I still couldn’t walk too well - but I could ride that bike like the wind. Or so I thought.

That evening my father came home from work to a very depressed child and a very concerned mother.

Funny how a young child looks to a father to solve problems. I know I did.

He didn’t disappoint me.

He wiped my tears and assured me that he would find my tricycle and bring it back to me.

I believed him!

Of course I had no concept of the impossibility of the task he had set for himself. London, England was always a crowded and over populated place and the 1930's were no exception. My bike had been snatched at midday - by evening it could have been miles away.

Dad applied his logic. He reasoned that taking the bike was a theft of opportunity made by a person walking by, either going to or from his/her home. With this mind he borrowed a bicycle from a neighbour and rode off in an effort to become my hero.

For an entire week - after work he rode up and down the local streets - stretching his search in ever widening circles. All to no avail!

Then one evening - BINGO - he spotted a young boy riding a red tricycle. Could this be the one? He checked the rear axle. Yes it definitely was. He knew because he recognised the repair he had fixed himself.

This is the part of the story where I should describe my father to you.

As I told you in the beginning - he was small of stature - I think he was about 5ft 5in tall. Slight of build. A working man in working man’s clothing. Let’s put it this way - when you looked at him the last thing you thought of was a London policeman. Keep that in mind as I continue.

Very carefully he approached the boy.

“Hello sonny - that’s a nice bike you have there.” He spoke to the child - not wanting to alarm him. “Do you live near here?”

Child points to house close by.

“O.K.” said my Dad, “Let’s go see your house.”

With that he knocked on the door. A man came out. From what I’ve been told a he was a pretty substantial looking man.

Now comes the stroke of genius.

“Evening guv. C.I.D.” Dad says, flashing a piece of paper from his pocket. For those of you not aware the C.I.D. are the top detective unit of Scotland Yard.

So now I ask you to imagine; a very rough area of London and there’s my little Dad, all 5 foot 5 holding onto his borrowed bicycle, and pointing to the little red tricycle. “That’s stolen property my man.” The man of the house was probably ready to punch him out and tell him to “you know what off”  But just then a real six foot two inch London Bobby happened to cycle by on his bike. My Dad waved to him a cheery: “Evening Bill, see you back at the station.” That was the clincher.

My dad convinced the thief that he would not press charges, merely release the stolen property and he would forget it.

So I got my bike back - Just as I knew I would.

So, to begin our trip down memory lane I might as well start with the event in my own life that has done more to mold my character than any other.  One I like to call:

My Run-in with a Car

It was a summer day.  The sun was for once shining down on London town.  I was 5 years of age.  Life was good.  Then it happened!  Everything became unstuck!

At the time we lived in the upstairs flat of a typical London Row house. The drawing shown is certainly more "gusified" than our little abode but is depicts the style perfectly.

Mum was very heavily pregnant with LS. And, from what I’ve been told, I had spied the Ice Cream man on his trolley bike and was very politely screaming for an ice cream cone.  Mum, tired, exhausted with the heat, uncomfortable with the extra weight, wishing that I’d shut-up, wishing that the baby she was carrying would make an early entrance to this world, gave in.  

She couldn’t manage the stairs but said she would look from the front window as I crossed the road to reach “Mr. Stop Me and Buy One”.

In 1938 there were very few cars on the street where we lived.  You were more likely to see a horse and cart than a fast moving car.  But that day there was one and I didn’t see it and I presume it didn’t see me!

They tell me that the skid marks from the car marked the road for all of that summer.

I don’t have memories of that day.  Most of what I relate comes second hand from family tales. However, to this day I have very strong memories of the smell of the ether that was placed over my face in the hospital.

Well, since I’m writing this story it’s pretty obvious I survived, but what I learned from that survival and how it has influenced my entire life – stay tuned. I’ll have more to say on this – but not now.  To be continued . . .   

Cast of Characters

Cast of Characters

I may change my mind later, but right now I’ve chosen not to identify them by actual name, rather each character will be assigned initials and a short introductory description as follows:

LS -- Little Sister - Beautiful –with gorgeous chestnut brown hair, masses of curls.  People were always remarking that "She's gonna break a lotta 'earts".  No one ever said that about me.  I was totally envious, breaking hearts seemed like a very powerful thing to be able to do!  Naturally she looked up to me as her older sister as evidenced by the following note she wrote when she was about 11 years of age:)

LBB – Little Big Brother – Tough – Scrapper. 

LLB – Little Little Brother  – Adored his LBB

As their official baby sitter these two characters were the bane of my young life.  Don't be fooled by their blonde innocent looks because as LS said they were always naughty!  They spent their time scrapping like two young lion cubs, but as you can see from the following picture LBB  has a very protective arm around LLB!

Mum – Loved us all in her own way, but vacillated on every promise.  She wasn't that good at cooking or sewing or knitting, but she had a strong personality and people loved her.

Dad - Fair but strict disciplinarian, taught me much.  Jack of all trades.  He could mend a broken clock, or handbag.  He could resole shoes, play a great game of darts and cook a Sunday roast.

GM - Grandmother M – Mother’s mother.. Known as Nanny.  Creative lady who made paper flowers that she sold at the local outdoor market.

GD - Grandmother D – Father’s mother - Known as Granny.  Said to have been a professional cook. Her organized life style was evident in her well kept home and the enormous ginger cat that was her constant companion.

Time Frame

These stories will probably not be told in any linear fashion and will generally meander through the years 1930’s up until the 1950’s.  But sometimes I may steer off course when some unexpected memory prompts me.

I might as well start with the event in my own life that has done more to mold my character than any other.   For that you will have to tune in to the next episode.

'Til then . . . 

Clearing Up This Cockney Confusion

Many London people call themselves Cockneys, but you only get the real stamp of approval if you were born within the sound of Bow Bells. 

Figure1 .Cheapside_and_Bow_Church_engraved_by_W.Albutt_after_T.H.Shepherd_publ_1837_edited

I can do that.  I was born at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital well within the sound of those bells. Neither my mother or father or my three siblings can do so. That’s not surprising since the bells are located in a built-up non-residential area of London and Barts (as it is affectionately called) no longer provides neo-natal services.  In 1993 it was recommended that hospital service should be delivered closer to where people lived. Barts was identified as a hospital with a catchment area that had a low population and the hospital was threatened with closure. 

This would have been tragic for a hospital that was founded in 1123 and is the oldest hospital in Britain.  Its long and colourful history deserves more space than I can allot to it here.

Figure 2 The King Henry VIII Gate at Barts was completed in 1702

So, I’ll exercise my legitimate right to call this blog “A Covey of Cockneys”, because the person telling the tales is me and the people I’ll be “Telling Tales” on (mostly my family) who all consider themselves Cockneys.

So, I might as well start out by filling in a little background on what it means to be or think oneself to be a Cockney. As I’ve had to explain to many a person over the years the term has nothing whatsoever to do with roosters or genitalia.  Like so many other words in the English language it is ascribed to many different sources. Not surprising when it’s said to have been around for hundreds of years.  It’s probably derived from the word “Cockayne” or a similar French word which was applied to the city dwellers, mainly Londoners I guess, and its meaning was not exactly flattering.  So, let’s leave that and move on to map out Bow Bells.

Because of its name, the district of Bow is often labelled as being the Cockney designator, but it can’t be because it sits 4.6 miles east of London’s centre.  Whereas, the church of St. Mary-le-Bow is in the city centre and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital where I was born is considered to be within the sound of the church’s bells.

Here's a link if you would like to hear the Sound of Bow Bells.  Not sure if this counts as a Cockney designator if played as a baby is born?

So now that we’ve got that settled, the question arises: Why am I doing this?  This telling tales out of school, this public airing of the family linen?   The answer is very simple: I’m getting old.  Soon it will be time to relinquish my space on this marvellous planet to make room for someone yet unborn.  But, before I go I’d like to leave a little record to show that I did pass through. Although these tales will mainly be of interest to my immediate family, if you’ve strayed this way by accident or design – please come in – you’re welcome to read about our lives, perhaps you’ve had similar experiences.