Via email: I had a wonderful childhood growing up in the village of Wigmore in Kent, my mother was a court dressmaker and my father was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, he served for 22 years, 18 of those at sea. My mother was on her own for most of the war years though for a few of those years her mother and an older sister moved in from London due to the bombing. It was an idyllic country childhood and we roamed the woods and fields to our hearts content, no worries about traffic and stranger danger then.After the war my father grew disenchanted with the peace time navy and resigned, work was hard to come by and he did several jobs, one of which was working for Uncle Alf, one of  Mummy's older brothers, making lead soldiers and Mummy dressed the dolld he made, more about Alf a very controversial figure later. Finally Daddy found a place as a chaufer to a rich London car dealer and we moved to South Kensington into a mews flat opposite the Science Museum, wonderful, I had all these museums at my fingertips and Harrods round the corner! My Dad's boss took a villa in the South of France each year and we drove down to St Jean Cap Ferat in the boss's wife's car so they would have both while there, again lovely for us kids but work for our parents, finally Dad had enough of being at someone else's beck and call and he bought into a cycle shop in the East End of London in Leyton, we moved there in 1951 I was 11 and loved it, Janet hated it and could not wait to get away. The cycle shop did well and my father worked so hard he died in 1962 and my mother never got over his death. I met Keith in 1957 we married in 1961 and after Audra was born decided the East End was no place to bring up a child, I had long wanted to migrate to Australia in Jan 1969 we came here and have lived in Bairnsdale ever since so we must like it!