I have written my autobiography a few times. Only once did I get from birth to the age I was at the time, I think 41. I lost that one, not sure how. I first tried it very young, inspired by the likes of Laurie Lee (Cider With Rose) and Gerald Durrell (My Family and Other Animals). They are mostly in the “tell” style and not very “show don’t tell”. Later ones for my access course and degree were much better but these were more non-fiction pieces than an autobiography as such. However, there is a dividing line between autobiography and memoir. Durrell’s work, I came to find out, was very much memoir… or, basically, fiction based loosely on fact. I’m not sure about Lee’s work. I’ve read quite a lot of autobiographies. At the end you either like the person or hate them. And how much truth should you add? How much is just boring?

So this is the problem I have: such a lot is boring, such I lot is far too private, and a lot is painful to write. I can’t write about certain parts of my life again as it’s heart-wrenching. Further than that, if you really go back there, get all the details down, at the end you think: “Is that all I got?” As in, what a crap life I have had, what a waste. I’ve actually had some interesting parts of my life, worth noting down, but a lot of crap too. I do have the autobiography started again but it’s been slow work and started when I did my access course in 2014. I’m not sure if it will ever be completed. I pretty much thought I’d settle with the snapshot non-fiction pieces. I certainly can’t bare to write a memoir, or, a pack of lies.

This preamble is to introduce the first part of my autobiography in relation to my very first memories and the other part of this website. So here it is, the start of my autobiography:

Earliest memories

I was born on Sunday March the 8^th 1970 at 4 in the morning. It has just occurred to me as I write that, though I am a 1970’s child, I was conceived in the 60’s. Therefore I was a 60’s foetus. I know this birth date, and even how heavy I was, due to one thing. A blue and white plate: Delftware. On it is a stork bringing a baby to its cot, the clock on the wall says the time, and the inscription is my name and the date. Apart from my body, the plate is my oldest possession, given by my Dutch granddad to celebrate the birth of a boy.

My very first memory was not long after. Most people remember events from three years old, I had to be different. As memories go it is fairly boring: the back of a door. Ok there is a little more. The door had a half arch window above, typical of a terrace house, behind it there was a wire basket to catch the post. And here is the first memory: the door was opened by my mum and a man stood there, grey hair, balding, shortish, stoutish. He talked to me, or about me, to my mum. And, as men did then, winked to the little baby. And there was little me, peering at him from my pram, a big dark blue comfy one with a proper foldy roof, big wheels and springy legs. An “old school” pram.

This memory knocked about in my head for 40 years or so until one day I told my mum about it, describing the door only. “That was our house in Nottingham, I used to put you behind the door in the pram when we came back and let you sleep.”

We left Nottingham when I was less than 1 year old. Which means that my first memory puts me at less than 1 year old. As a scene it is average, as an achievement it is quite surprising. I’ve been obsessed with half arch windows and baskets to catch the post all my life.

I have always been pleased to be born on a zero. My maths has constantly been bad, so being born on a ten has made things easy for me. I’ve also rated being born in 1970, a good year, looks pretty, nicer than 1969 or 1971 for sure. Also March has obsessed me as a month, both for its place in the year (windy in England) and for a good distance from Christmas, so one gets more gifts, but not too long to wait after xmas.

As I kid I passed through the town of March quite a lot, and there was a Formula 1 racing team back then called March. I used to play with the word March as marching, especially when passing though the town. I like the idea of being born on a Sunday and love the number 8. All wins. If just the time of year makes one a fit a star sign then I have just listed a few things that affected me as a kid and still as an adult.

Earliest memories 2, 3 & 4

Then I arrive at the second memory, which for a long time I thought was my first. I was three, or even two, nearly three. I think it was Christmas, though I am not sure. Perhaps I think that because I woke up in my cot to find a present. The cot was in my Nan and Grandad Gunn’s spare bedroom and my mum was sleeping alone in the double bed. In the semi gloom I opened my gift and found it to be a toy car, and a pretty swanky one at that, with real rubber wheels. A rather sporty number. Not a matchbox job, this was the next size up. When my mum awoke she told me it was from my dad. I am pretty sure I did not know where he was, even if I was told it would have made no sense.

Which brings me to the third memory, which could easily have been the second memory. Though it could actually have been the forth. Who knows what order they were in but for the fact that it was all around one particular event.

I remember being in a car with my mum and we were going to hospital in Peterborough. There were a neat row of trees outside and inside was my dad, in a communal TV room, wearing pyjama’s. I wasn’t quite sure why he was wearing pyjamas. There were a few other men in the room in pyjamas. This is clearly a fourth memory as I now know we had been to see him before, but that time I was not allowed to see him as he had a wire frame on his face which was holding it together.

That third memory was with my Nan and Grandad as well as mum. I always thought it had been a dream, as I had a lucid memory of the lifts in the hospital. I think this became dream like as I probably had dreams (or nightmares) about it for years afterwards. My Grandad was with me as we watched the lift doors open and people were inside. This must have turned into a dream as suddenly all the walls were glass and I could see the people going up and down inside the glass elevators.

My nan has always been keen to tell the story of when I ran down the corridor to dad’s room, but stopped before I got to the door. He was inside with his wire framed face and I’d have probably been scarred for life. As indeed he was, having to wear glasses from then.

He was 28. I know that because when I was 28 something very similar happened to me. My dad had been in a car accident.

I can summarise my early memories then in chronological order:

1. A door in Nottingham
2. A car in my cot
3. Me in hospital looking at lifts
4. Dad in hospital in his pyjamas

More early stuff

There were other early memories. For instance getting a “you are three birthday” card. So we can assume my memory, and consciousness of self, was in operation at the age of three. I can also work out the year, due to my rounded number trick.

We lived in a flat above my Nan and Grandad’s shop in Whittlesey. It was a big three bedroom flat. My dad, as he often did, had modified it to be modern. The kitchen had a breakfast bar with stools, open plan to the sitting room. My mum often helped in the shop and I would be left alone for short periods watching Play School on the black and while portable telly, sitting on the chairs my dad had made from a model in the readers digest DIY book and I would pinch garibaldi biscuits from the kitchen.

While ‘free’ with my mum I was always happy doing my own thing as she hoovered with the noisy Hoover and whatever the other mum things were that she was doing. It was always with a slight dread of when my dad came home and resumed the strict bringing up child thing.

I would be absorbed with my toys and my tricycle or the tricycle tractor. There were steep steps down to our little garden which was fenced off from the main shop yard. I would go out there and pedal around the concrete where my Grandad’s Triumph 2000 stood.

At the end of the yard was a big gate which led out onto a back road. To one side of the yard a hump of rubbish where cats would lurk and I would watch them avidly from my tricycle.

To one side of the yard was an opening which led out onto the side street. Across the street was a small builder’s yard where dumper trucks would arrive with tippers full of shingle, very exciting. I would watch the dustmen come with the dust lorry that had the whole back end lift up to compact the rubbish.

This opening was where my granddad usually parked the Triumph. It was quite a sun trap. I liked to look at the massive snails here and watch the thrushes bash the shells on the ground.

You can see the Nottingham house and Whittlesey shop: here