Mum and Dad were married on Sept 25th 1965 – I was born on March 21st 1966.
Mum was born in Bermondsey London on June 25th 1943. She was the second youngest of seven children and was born and grew up in the same house in Fort Road (later changed to Setchell Road) until after she married my Dad.
She attended Kintore Way Nursery School and then went to Boutcher Church of England Primary School, located on Grange Road opposite Bermondsey Spa Gardens. She went there until she went off to work at the tender age of 15. At the time of my mum’s attendance the school was an all girls’ school.
Mum left school and went to work for C&E Heath who were a Lloyds underwriter company. She worked there for three years as a data processor (in the early years of computers), she then got a job at Marplan where she did a similar role until I was 4 years old (originally working in their offices in London and then moving to their new premises in Croydon – they changed their name to Data Plan on moving to Croydon). She then got a job with MIL (Market Investigations Limited) and was with them for two years and then had my sister Emma and went to work for Libra Computing – until we left England in 1977. I remember sometimes going into work with mum and playing with the “computer cards” she was entrusted to format for the early computer programmers of the 1970’s. From the invention of computer programming languages up to the mid-1970s, most computer programmers created, edited and stored their programs line by line on punch cards. Often programmers first wrote their program out on special forms called coding sheets. These forms were then taken by keypunch operators, who using a keypunch machine, punched the deck. Often another keypunch operator would then take that deck and re-punch from the coding sheets – but using a “verifier” that checked that the original punching had no errors. A typing error generally necessitated re-punching an entire card. The editing of programs was facilitated by reorganising the cards, and removing or replacing the lines that had changed.
I also remember Mum working with Nan at The Alaska Factory from time to time.
When we moved to Australia Mum started working at Pine Gap. For those of you unsure of what Pine Gap is – join the club. Mum worked there for nearly 30 years and none of us has a clue at to what she did out there. Wikipedia says the following ….. “Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a joint US-Australian satellite surveillance base and Australian Earth station approximately 18 kilometres south-west of the town of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in the centre of Australia which is jointly operated by Australia and the United States. Since 1988, it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility. The station is partly run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), US National Security Agency (NSA), and US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and is a key contributor to the NSA’s global interception effort, which included the ECHELON program. The classified NRO name of the Pine Gap base is Australian Mission Ground Station (AMGS), while the unclassified cover term for the NSA function of the facility is RAINFALL.” See – who knows WTF she did out there. She retired from Pine Gap in 2007 as one of the longest serving Australians to work at the facility.
She moved to Port Noarlunga in 2007 and has been mostly happily retired since then.
My earliest recollection of Mum was when I was quite young and we were living in Stopford Road. Mum had strong connections with her family and we were often involved in numerous “family events”. We would visit Nan and Grandad a lot – whether it was at the house at Setchell Road or after they had moved to Reverdy Road. We seemed to spend a lot of time at weddings, engagements, christenings, family dinners, weekend excursions and holidays with the numerous Aunts, Uncles and cousins I had. My Nan and Grandad had 7 children, 20 grandchildren, 37 great grandchildren and 20 great great grandchildren – so as you can imagine there was plenty of family events to attend. That was one of the things I hated and struggled with the most when we moved to Australia – being “removed” from my extended family.
I remember going all over London with my mum in my early years. Whether it was for work, to visit family or to do stuff together. She would often take me to Kennington Park that was just around the corner from our home in Stopford Rd, I also remember going to Bermondsey Spa Gardens (my favourite park in London I think) this had a huge kids playground and was such fun to play in. We would go shopping down East St Market (funnily enough we ended up living in East St right next to the market when my sister was born). I remember on our way to school we would go past this bakery and have two hot buns for breakfast, straight from the oven I reckon as they were always steaming hot. Interesting that prior to my sister’s birth I rarely ventured outside by myself – Mum was always there. This changed dramatically when my sister was born and we moved to Everett House in East St (where I came a bit of a free range child from ages 7 – nearly 12).
My sister’s entry into the world was a traumatic one for my Mum. As a result of a troubled pregnancy and post pregnancy complications she had to have her spleen removed. I vaguely remember this but on talking to Mum was shielded from any knowledge of it mostly as it was happening. The arrival of my sister meant we got to move out of our home in Stopford Road and into a council flat in Everett House in East St – number 25. The flat was located on the third floor of the block of flats that made up Everett House. It overlooked and was dwarfed by The Aylesbury Estate – an infamous neighbour that was often described as the most crime ridden estate in the whole of the UK (it was used to film certain scenes of The Bill – when they needed a dodgy estate to set certain crimes in).
When I was 11 Mum and Dad made the decision to move to Australia. My Uncle (Dad’s brother), Aunt and two cousins lived there and finally convinced us to move.
More on the move later …….
So my Dad was born in Andover, Hampshire. As mentioned previously he was the youngest of three – having an older brother and sister.
Dad attended East St Primary School and Winton Secondary School in Andover. The secondary school was divided into two by London Road – one side of the the road being the girls’ school and the other being the boys’ school. Although attending one, knowing Dad, he spent most of his later years at the school plotting to sneak into the other one.
Dad joined the army soon after leaving school. He was in the Grenadier Guards and after his initial training was posted to British Guiana to assist in the peaceful transition to independence – which resulted in Guyana becoming an independent nation in 1966. For those unsure of what a Grenadier Guard is have a look at the photos below – yep he was one of those. Yep he did get to guard the Queen and other important places and people in and around London. Yep the general public were a real nuisance and could literally drive him nuts – but they were trained professionals, who took their job very seriously and although feeling like using the bayonets for their intended purpose on some of the “yobbos” who taunted them – the guards carried out their duties with grace and honour. Dad still carries a nasty scar of his time in South America – the company he was in had adopted a three toed sloth as a company mascot. On leaving the continent for the last time it was Dad’s and a couple of other blokes job to release it into the wild. The sloth was clearly unhappy to be going back into the bus that it took a big chunk of Dad’s cheek as a souvenir – Dad’s ginger beard has covered up this rather nasty blemish for all of the time I have known him.
Mum and Dad met whilst he was still in the army. Dad chatted Mum up on a train and something obviously clicked as they have been together ever since.
On leaving the army Dad started working as a glazier at Sun Alliance Insurance. The company did repairs to damaged windows in buildings across London who were covered by the insurance company. This included houses and flats, but most commonly involved large shop fronts and even high rise buildings. I remember the company’s glazing workshop was housed in a railway arch near Blackfriars Bridge – a place I visited often growing up.
He also went “into business” with a friend making leather garments – after working during the day on the glass. Initially in the living room of our house in Stopford Road, before moving into some more roomy premises in Soho. For much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for London’s sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headquarters of leading film companies. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification. It is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. Dad’s workshop was located above a strip joint and was popular amongst the strippers, local sex workers, musicians and actors who frequented the area.
Dad was a talented footballer and was training or playing most days during the season. On moving to Australia he continued playing well into his 40’s locally in Alice Springs, and although a little slower than in his heyday never lost his touch, cunningness, guile and hardness.
On moving to Alice Springs he continued on the glass for a while – but fixing windows in 45 degree heat is not much fun and after persevering for a while, picked up a job with the NT Department of Education in the stores. He took on several jobs within the public service – moving from the stores to recruitment, then onto salaries within the Education Department. He then worked at NT Correctional Services in probation and parole, prisoner wellbeing and finally ended up acting director of Corrections for the whole of the NT. He retired at the age of 55.
On retiring Dad took on the role of greenskeeper at the Alice Springs Bowling Club. Mum and Dad were both active members of the club. Dad was a keen bowler and ended up playing bowls at the highest level – going on to win club, district, country, state and national titles. He represented the NT over 150 times. Mum was President of the club for a number of years and was a good bowler herself – winning club, district and state titles. Although never representing the NT as a player she was a selector for a “state” side. Two of my proudest moments were when Dad and I got to play in the National sides championships for the NT at Queanbeyan (would have been 1999 I think) together (played in four altogether – ACT, WA, SA, NSW). The other was when we played in the Australian Champions of Champions in Melbourne in 2000 – we played in the fours after winning the NT fours title (with no luck), but Dad stayed on to watch me compete in the pairs which my good mate Scott and I won against NSW (after beating ACT, QLD and Vic on the way). To win an Australian title with Dad there was something very special indeed.
Mum and Dad have always been great champions for their kids – my sister and I. I always knew they were there for me growing up and into adulthood – but I also knew that they had raised me to have strong morals, fight for what I believe in, stand on my own two feet, make my own mistakes, fight my own battles – but could come home for a good cry if I ever needed it and they would never judge me.
They are now grandparents themselves – two grandsons and two granddaughters and even have two great grandchildren. They go by Nan and Pop to their grandkids and Nan Nan and Pop Pop to their great grandkids.
There is not enough page here to write everything about my parents – but trust me they will feature plenty in my future posts.
Big Dopey Old Bloke 