Beginnings

I had a lovely childhood but we did use to squabble a lot. There were three of us and being the youngest I had to fight my corner that bit harder. It made me quite rough, I think.

One day I found out they were calling me a BLFS behind my back. I had no idea what they were talking about but I knew it wasn't very nice and I got upset. They couldn't keep it secret for long of course: I soon found out the letters stood for Budding Little Film Star. Jean and Mags - we always called her Mags, though she's Margaret now - thought I was histrionic, and spoiled, obviously, because I was the baby.

They thought that but all I wanted was to be on a par with them, not to feel like the baby all the time, and that's why it hurt so much I suppose.

Then, when I was ten, our dad died, and that was the end of childhood for the three of us. It made such an incredible difference to our lives, made us what we are, probably. I just remember it as being unbearably hard. They played the 23rd. psalm at his funeral and for years I'd crack up everytime I heard it set to that music, the Crimond isn't it? I still get a bit anxious, even now, when I hear the tune.

Mum and Dad were very much in love - very much. They really were. I've got a lovely image of them, one Christmas, when I must have been 5 or 6. We used to leave out mince pies and sherry for Father Christmas for when he came down the chimney so that he could have his snack. I was sat at the top of the stairs to see if I could catch sight of him. The house we lived in was a typical 1930's semi-detached, a nice house really, with a front room with a bay window, and a room at the back with French windows. As I sat at the top of the stairs and looked into the room at the back, I could see them standing against the French windows. Mum had got her arms around Dad's neck, and I think he had his around her waist, and they were just giving each other a gentle, affectionate kiss. And that was really nice.

I always felt they were a good couple. They didn't argue much. They didn't have friends away from each other. Everything centred on us, and then it all just sort of fell away. Things would definitely have been a lot different for all of us if Dad hadn't died when he did.

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I was born in A..........., a suburb of Derby, about three miles to the south of the city, as the Second World War was coming to an end. In fact, the day I was born was the day they buried my grandmother, so because of my inconsiderate timing MY mother was prevented from going to HER mother's funeral.

She had died in hospital of septicaemia. Mum always rather dreaded the possibility of getting septicaemia herself. It wasn't an obsession with her exactly, but it was something she talked about, which makes it strange that it was given as a part-cause of her own death in hospital sixty years or so later.....

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