As I will explain elsewhere in these pages, I have no memory of much of my life, a condition commonly called SDAM. Because of that, I rely on other people and on photographs to be able to say anything about my history. Indeed, this page of the website will be a collection of inferences drawn from photographs and documents, as well as a very few sporadic and often quite trivial memories.

So it was very fortunate that my younger sister recently came across the photograph of the street party above. The party was held in my home street in Leicester to celebrate VE Day on 8 May 1945, and there I am, having to be cuddled by my older sister! There’s another sister in the photograph, my mum and dad are the couple on the back row on the right-hand side.

Of course I remember nothing about it, but then I don’t remember very much after that. My sense is that it was a happy childhood despite the premature death of my father when I was nine years old. I remember nothing of my primary school, and very little indeed about my secondary school where the second picture above came from a school photograph taken in 1956. It is obvious from the uniform that I was a Boy Scout.

After seven more years of state education at The Wyggeston Boys School in Leicester, I went away to learn medicine at The London Hospital on the Whitechapel Road. A house job in the casualty department, which we called the Receiving Room, was followed by seven years as a Medical Officer in the Royal Air Force. One odd memory I have is that I arrived at my first posting to be told that the Ministry of Defence had sent me the wrong orders, and rather than South Wales I should have turned up at a station in Germany… And on my eventual arrival there, the Senior Medical Officer greeted me, handed me the keys to the Medical Centre mini and told me that I would be on duty that night. “I’m sorry, sir,” I stammered, “I can’t drive!” Within the hour I was out on the airfield being taught to drive! Just two of the very few memories I have of seven years in the Royal Air Force that they also gave me the privilege of retaining my senior rank and a General Service Medal for my two years’ service in Northern Ireland.