Childhood

My earliest memory may not be mine.

We visited Nan Wells on Sundays often enough for the routine to feel fixed, though I cannot say whether it was every week.

Denise lived two doors down and knew the street already. This gave her authority.

We moved to Portchester in August 1969, a few weeks before my seventh birthday and before I started at Castle Lane Junior School.

Mum walked me to Castle Lane on my first morning. Denise came with us and behaved as though she were showing two visitors round.

Gran Collins counted her change before she left the counter.

We went to Hayling Island for a week in the summer of 1971 and stayed in a caravan. It was not our first caravan holiday, but it is the first one I remember in enough detail to separate it from the others.

Decimal Day was Monday, 15 February 1971. I was eight and had been told that money was changing, although the pound was staying the same. This seemed an unnecessary way to organise it.

We went to Weymouth in August 1972 and stayed in a boarding house near the seafront. The week was wet often enough for the rain to become part of the daily planning, though not enough for Dad to admit the holiday had been affected.