My life story

I am going to try and tell my life story, partly to help me remember where I have come from and to remind me how far I have come. In thinking about writing this I realized that it would be how ‘I’ saw things and not necessarily what really happened, so forgive me for my ‘artist license’ and I promise not to ’sugar coat’ my life ………………….to much (lol). (Disclaimer – any photos I will be using will be ones I got from the Internet, thank you to everyone that posted them. If there is a picture that I have used that belongs to you and you would like it removed, please let me know. The use of these images are not to offend)

Chapter One – the birth of a son

It all started in 1959. My birth was very much anticipated as being the answer to all my parents problems. My mother had miscarried 4 other babies before me which had left my parents fearing that they would never be able to bring up a live child. Little did I know what heavy responsibility was already being placed on my shoulders before I was born. Being the completing agent for other people dreams is always doomed from the outset. But what did I know I was a baby.

On the 6th July 1959 I decided that I was coming out and nothing was going to stop me. My mother (Vicky)was taken into our local hospital as they were concerned because of the previous miscarriages. As my mother was in the maternity ward, two floors up in the same hospital my Grandmother lay in a bed dieing of lung cancer.

Vicky (my mother) and Malcomb (my father) had been married for 5 years before I cam along. Malcomb was formally in the Air Force Police and Vicky worked in a local factory. Both came from humble backgrounds. Malcomb was an only son to ‘older’ parents and Vicky was one of two children, she and her brother Rocky were but put up for adoption by their father as he could not cope after their mother had ran off with someone else. Vicky and Rocky were separated and did not see each other again until many years later as adults.

When they married, Vicky and Malcomb moved in with Malcombs parents in a very small cottage on the outskirts of a town called Plymouth in the UK. Malcomb was now working as a butcher having left the forces.

Back at the birth, after a few hours I decided that I was not going to come out unless I had a bit of help. So the midwife was called for and she came armed with the forceps. After a lot of pulling I finally gave in and popped out. There I was lying in Vicky’s arms, alive, breathing, crying, blue and with a pointed head. I had what is known as ‘blue baby syndrome’ a problem caused by lack of air during birth, the pointed head was caused by the forceps,my head was soon gently massaged back into its normal shape. At least I was alive and stay that way.

After the excitements of my birth the issue of a name became the next focus of peoples attention. What to call me? A freind of my mother had told her that she was going to have a baby girl and my mother totally believed her, so when a boy popped, out no name had be agreed on.

After a few days I was taken to see my grandmother. She asked if I had been named, as I hadn’t she asked if she could name me. The name she gave me was Perry, after Perry Como ( the American singer). This fact would come back to haunt me when I started at junior school.

Chapter Two – the early years

I left hospital some days latter once I was not longer blue and my head was normal space for a baby. My Grandmother did not come out of hospital, she died a few days after I was born.

I guess the next few years were full of bottles, nappies and all the other stuff babies do in the first few years of their lives. Three years after my birth and sister came along. I do have may memories from this time in my life. I remember have a plastic horse on wheels that I played on as a child, one day it head fell off. My father tried to sick it back on again, melting the edge of the broken head in the hope to fuse it to the horse neck. This lasted for about an hour and feel off again. So I became the headless horse rider like some kind of ghost phantom.

Summer days were full of trips out around the Devon and Cornish country side. Playing in streams, paddling at the seaside, eating freshly steamed crab fresh for the key side. But all was not as it seemed. My parents were clearly not happy, money was short and where we lived was far from OK. We lived in a very small cottage in a village just outside of Plymouth. The cottage was VERY small. It held 3 adults, mum, dad and now my granddad. Two young children that soon became three. Will only two bedrooms, my granddad lived and slept in the front room. All us kids were in one bedroom. There was a small box room however it was literary was a box.

With people living so close together, tension became a way of life. Often my parent would argue, my father storming out leaving y mother crying on the kitchen floor. It was hard for them, I realize looking back, they did the best they could for us. It cant be easy having kids and they don’t come with instructions.

There were happy times too. Sunday evening were spent in the dinning room; by the open fire would be a big tin bath that would be filled for us. The radio would be in the background, Sing Something Simple would be the theme of our bath times. We had not hot running water so all water had to be boiled up. The kitchen was always filled with warm wet clouds of steam. My mother would make paste sandwiches and there would be Battenberg cake for afters. After bath and sandwiches it was off to bed, of course making sure to visit the outside toilet as no one wanted to get up in the night to go out there in the dark.