'After their marriage I believe my parents were appointed to take charge of the Army's work in Tamworth, Staffs.  At any rate that was where I was born on the 23rd February 1920.  In quick succession my parents were moved to Nuneaton, Loughborough, Marylebone in London, Felixstowe and Norwich where Dad was appointed Young People's Secretary at the Divisional H.Q. there.'

'In common with most S.A. Officers, my parents moved house and home frequently.  After Norwich we moved to London where we lived in Streatham, Catford and Balham in quick succession.  I was still barely 7 when we arrived in Balham.  My sister Marjorie was born there in May 1927.  Shortly after her birth, to our great grief, mother was taken seriously ill.  It was an illness from which she never recovered.  Because of this, I went to live with my grandparents in Weymouth.  Eric stayed with my father's sister, Ivy, and her husband, Harold Gray, in Tamworth where I was born.  Marjorie was cared for by Grandma Blundell and her other daughter, Lillie, who was also an Army Officer.'

'When I was nearly 10 my father decided it was time to set up a home for my brother Eric, and me.  He employed a housekeeper, Kate Pullen, who had been working in the S.A. Naval and Military hostel in Weymouth.  For about 5 years we live in Leyton, Essex, not far from Epping Forest.  During this time Miss Pullen got married and her place was taken by Bertha Gibson, who came from Bradford in Yorkshire.  When we settled in Leyton at the end of 1929 our sister Marjorie, who was only two and a half years old, continued to be cared for by Grandma Blundell and Aunt Lillie.  Marjorie lived with them until the outbreak of war.  During the war years she stayed with our grandparents in Weymouth.

In 1934 we moved from Leyton to Catford in S.E. London, not far from Beckenham and Bromley.  By this time my father was Private Secretary to Commissioner Hurren, Principal of the S.A. Training College in Denmark Hill, London.  Prior to that he had, amongst other things, been Territorial Organiser of the S.A. Scouts throughout Great Britain, Assistant National Young People's Secretary and Young Men's Counsellor.  When we moved to Catford I was 14 years of age, the idea being that I should be transferred from Ruckholt Central School in Leyton to a similar school in Catford.  As this would have been my 8th school, I rebelled at the idea of attending yet another school and persuaded my father to let me start work as a Junior Clerk in the Education Department of the S.A. Training College.  This meant my formal education was far from complete, and so I tried to make up for this by attending Evening Classes, also by prolific reading.  The daily train journeys between Beckenham Hill and Denmark Hill made the latter possible.  

My brother Eric, having gained a scholarship just before we left Leyton, was accepted as a student at Colfe's Grammar School, Lewisham.  It was a school founded in the seventeenth century by the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers.  In 1937, when I was 17 years of age, I transferred from the Training College to the S.A. Divisional H.Q. in Balham, where I was Secretary to Brigadier Bert Rolls, a good friend of my father's.' 

1963.