When I look back on my life, some parts definitely seem like I'm watching a movie about someone else, and that it wasn't me at all. Some parts, I wish had never happened, but then I'd have lost the good things that came out from the bad things, and that would be too high a price to pay for eradicating the pain.
That I was an odd child is something that I'm ok with now, and most of the time, was ok with in my youth. I was quite happy to curl up with a good book and just block the rest of the world out, and escape.
Back in the early 60s, one of the things that set me apart was having 2 fathers. My dad married my mum when I was 2, and adopted me when I was 7. The adoption day coincided with the zoo trip that the top 2 classes in the Infants went to, before going "up" to the Juniors. In the case of George Tomlinson, it really was "up" as the Infants was on the ground floor and the Juniors, upstairs, although having different entrances. Thus, my original illegitimacy became a matter of knowledge after that. The only other oddity in my class was a lass named Linda Bray, whose mother was single, and I can't remember whether it was by choice or divorce, but back in 1962/63 it was def not the done thing.
In the Juniors, my first teacher, for 2 years, was Mrs Stark. She was strict and I don't think she liked me very much. I wrote stories in my "journals" and she told me once I must have been reincarnated and lived during Victorian times as my stories were so detailed. I was 7 and 8 during her classes, but read mostly Dickens, and the Brontes (Charlotte's Jane Eyre was my favourite, read and reread over and over) as well as horsey stories like Sewell's Black Beauty and the then-contemporary My Friend Flicka books.
The second 2 years, I had Miss Lynes as the teacher, and despite having a reputation as a "stickler", she was actually really nice. I had a seat near the window, in her class, but since I loved school, my daydreaming happened on my own time, not in class.
I loved George Tomlinson though, and flourished there. My best friend was Stephanie Baum, and our mums went shopping together on a Friday evening at Fine Fare down Leytonstone High Street. Us kids (she had 2 sisters, Judith and Elaine) and I had 2 at that time, Stephanie and Theresa, would play on the sides of the stairs leading up to the cafeteria. They were polished wood, about 9" wide, the perfect size for our little bottoms to use as a slide.
Some weekends, and during school holidays, I spent with my nan and granpop, who I'd lived with when I was little, and when my mum had first got married. I went to live with my mum when my parents bought 47 Southern Drive, Loughton. I was about 4 and my sister was born shortly afterward.
My nan and granpop spoiled me, but I was a good kid. I had to be quiet as they lived in an upstairs flat above an old lady who'd bash on the ceiling with a broom when my nan used the roller sweeper on the rugs. It wasn't a big deal for me, I had dress up dolls, colouring books, Ladybird and I-Spy Books on no end of subjects, I knitted and sewed doll's clothes for my 3 teenage dolls there, Candy, Sandy and Mandy.
Some days we'd walk to Riddley Road Market, some days to my granpop's work at King and Scarborough, on Kingland Rd alongside the canal. My nan took me to museums and art galleries, or we went to Clissold Park where there was a talking Mynah bird in one of the big cages there, his name was Charlie.
I had a pretty good childhood but then my late teens and early 20s kind of went awry. The bad stuff, well it was really bad, but with God's grace, I made it through and now that I'm older, I can look back and see that, although it was terrible at the time, as a part of my life, it's actually quite a small fragment of the years that I've lived.
I look back and see how far I've come, and it's a definite "who'd a thunk it?"
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