Why Now?

Laying in bed unable to sleep, which is quite often, I regularly assess my life to see where I went wrong and how I ended up here. I am a great believer in the law of unintended consequence so tend to think through the might-have-beens and their possible outcomes. I have come to realise that the life I had was the only possible life for me and probably the best that I could ever get. In saying this, I am ignoring my four children, all of my grandchildren and my wonderful wife, Valerie, because it need not be said that anything that might have been that would have changed that story would not have been desirable. These meanderings during the darkness are just that – meanderings.  I have just been listening to Roger Moore read his Autobiography on Radio 4. One small fact you may not know is that Roger Moore went to the same school as me. His early years as described in this book were as bland as can be – the highlight seems to have been going to the Streatham Locarno, and infamous South London Dance Hall. It seems to me that I did a lot more in my first 18 years than he ever did. This set me thinking that if he could relate the humdrum, then maybe I could do the same. His life story will improve in interest as he moves along. Mine will keep in the humdrum. The decision to write an autobiography was born at that time. The chronology will not be the only criterion when it comes to the ordering of events. Some things are better progressed on their own and I will then revert back to the time line. Just to be sure that everything is clear, this is not a history of the family – just my life. I realise how that must sound but to attempt to analyse what everyone else was doing and how they were coping and reacting would be far too much a task for me, so what you will get is me – me – me with everyone else as a bit player in the ‘drama’. I am also not going to get involved in opinions of others or events. I will try to keep this record just to events and my feelings, where appropriate.  Thinking about how an autobiography might work, I realised that I would have to start much earlier than that day at the end of the war when my first screams were heard. However, I am very aware that there are many things that my parents knew and experienced that are now lost to me and hence to posterity. Nothing that Charlie and Ivy did carried any large import or affect on the world but it was their life and it’s now lost. I will start the story from the earliest things that I know about their lives and then go onward.