66 years of me!

So, today is my birthday. 66! Def a "who'd a thunk it?" Hard to think I've been on this Earth now for 66 whole years, and how much history I have seen in those years. 

When I was born, England still had an Empire, and Empire Day was a celebration held each year on my birthday. Why? Because when Empire Day was created, it was held on Queen Victoria's birthday, so I shared my birthday with (at that time) the Queen who had ruled Britain for the longest time in history. Our current Queen, Elizabeth II, has now surpassed her great-great-grandmother's prior record. 

Subsequently, throughout the 60s and 70s, I saw countries that had originally been a part of the Empire, gain their independence and become members of the Commonwealth instead. I was an avid stamp collector in those days and had lots of stamps from the pre-Independence days. I'm pretty sure that my stamp collection taught me a lot about history and geography without me actually realising it.

A sad part of the 60s was the closing of many railways in England in 1966 courtesy of Lord Beeching. He destroyed the railways. I have vivid memories of going on the "seaside train" to Southend, from Stratford in London, on a beautiful steam train. I can still hear the delicious clunking click as the doors were slammed, the hiss of the steam,  and smell the mix of oil, and coal smoke. I am still a steam fan, so many memories.

My favourite station was Liverpool Street, it's Victorian design was amazing and so beautiful. We used to go visit "Aunt Maud", an elderly lady who had lived next door to my nan during the war and become an adopted aunt to my mum and her sister (and thus we'd inherited her too).

We would walk from Liverpool Street station to her Victorian apartment, probably about a mile or so. As we'd come around the corner from the station, there used to be a stone Victorian water trough with lion heads at each end, and a tap for drinking water.

We'd also pass a pub where - if we were lucky - we'd see beer barrels being rolled down into the cellar through a street level trapdoor, from a  horse-drawn dray. The horse would have it's head in a nosebag and we'd be able to stroke it's mane and neck.

Aunt Maud's street was magic to us kids. Cast iron ballards at the end of the street to leapfrog over, old gaslights that were no longer in use but still stood decoratively on the pavement, and a circular stone staircase at her apartments that echoed as we kids stomped up them. Her door was huge, and thick, the doorknocker would resonate and even at 11 (about 5 feet tall) I couldn't reach it. 

At 7 I joined the Girl's Life Brigade (later the Girl's Brigade) and the firs Sunday of the month, we'd march through Leytonstone with the Boy's Brigade and their band, and older groups like WWII veterans and the WI. We would start and end up at our church on the High Street, and one time I had the honour of carrying the flag as we marched. 

My first school was George Tomlinson, I loved it there and came 2nd in exams every year except for one, and that year Trevor Stannard came 2nd and I swapped places with him and came in 3rd. Katie Beinder was first, as always. My best friend all through George Tom was Stephanie Baum, and her mum and mine always went shopping together at Fine Fare on Friday nights. We did country dancing competitions with other schools, I was on the netball team as a shooter, every Winter there were daffodil growing contests, and the Stratford Music Festival was where the schools took part in music contests, and pupils were able to recite poetry where the grand prize was elocution lessons (to help us speak properly in public, noy in our east end cockney slang).

My first job was as a paper girl, when I was 11, and I would be up at 5am and go to a little hole-in-the-wall shop on Grove Green Rd, just around from the subway entrance, and help sort the papers and bag them for the different routes. My regular route was Queen's Rd (where I lived) and King's Rd (next to it). I would carry my sack and walk up and down both streets, popping newspapers through the letterboxes, and then go back to the shop and - if somebody else hadn't showed up - I'd then pull a second route, before going home and getting ready for school. I got 2/- a route and double on Sundays.

In 1971, as a pre-requisite for joining the Common Market, England had to change our money from pounds, shillings and pence to the decimal "new money". I had such a prissy attitude and railed (still do, because it still irks me) that we had to change our money because the other countries were too stupid to count 240 units into a pound, they could only count in tens and hundreds. Now, such a waste, as Britain finally left the Common Market's successor - the EU - having finally awakened to the fact that they were only ever the poor relation and were perpetually taken advantage of, over the decades. 

At 11, my music came from my faithful tranny, and the radiogram in the living room that played old 78rpms, 33rpm LPs and 45rpm singles.  With the advent of the cassette player, I'd record stuff off Radio Luxembourg, and fight the tangled tapes by rewinding with a pencil. Only those of my era will understand that.

During the 60s came the mini skirt, and school uniform declared skirts could be no higher than 4" above the knee. My mum kept mine at knee length, deeming me too old to show off my knickers, so I would roll over the waistband at school, so as to be in style.

In the 70s, we got colour telly in Britain, and I watched the royal wedding on my friend, Dee's, down the road. She was the only person I remember having a colour telly at that time.

The 80s saw the beginnings of videotapes. First BETA and then VHS, and they would only play on machines of their type. Cassettes made way for CDs, and then videotapes quickly became passe as DVDs entered the market. 

1987 saw us having our first computer, a KayPro16, that needed 5" floppy disks (and took 5 or 6 being put in and out, in order to load enough info into it to run a word processing programme to write a letter or type up notes. 

We were in Germany at that time, as the "Wall" went down, putting an end to the "Iron Curtain" that had existed all through my childhood. East Germany and West Germany were finally reconciled as one country. 

I can remember the grainy black and white images of the first flights into Space, Yuri Gagarin the first man in space (he and Valentina Tereschkova - the first woman in space - were heroes of mine back then), man's first landing on the moon, the Shuttle program, and my awe at my first shuttle launch when we lived in Florida. It was a big "WOW, this is really happening and I'm here" culmination of all of the magic of that history. 

During my lifetime I've seen the ending of apartheid in South Africa, and civil rights in America; the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union; the rise of air travel; I've sailed on the QEII three times, transatlantic each time and met some awesome people; published a book of poetry in 2000 and have been an AVON lady now for almost 15 years.

I have been married now 35 years to my 2nd hubby, spent more than half my life in America, have 3 children, 9 grandkids and 9 great-grandkids. Methinks I can say I have lived and been blessed.