• Ref.Number: FB019
• Date: 10.2.07
• Interviewer (I): Allan King
• Subject: Life as a child on Calgarth
• Period: 1943-1944

L

I was born in Hexham in, oh Corbridge in Hexham in Northumberland, again being a wartime baby and very much associated with my father moving round the country, my mother just happened to be staying with her sister, with her husband’s relatives in Hexham, and again because of firebombing in Newcastle, by Nazis, I had to be born sort of fairly close by, and that’s how I came to be born in Hexham. None of our other family…were all born in the Medway towns so I’m unusual in that respect yes.

I

You’re the only northerner in the Medway towns.

L

I am the Geordie. I am actually Geordie because I was born on the banks…virtually on the banks of the River Tyne, yes.

I

Excellent. Anything.. your first memories at are Windermere, at Calgarth?

L

Yeah that’s right, yes they must be my first childhood memories, basically, the things that… things not related to the Sunderland, I mean basically I can just…I always remember the…it was either a stream or way actually the River Trout itself, running under the bridge, remember looking at the water flowing over the stones or the rocks and they were sort of fascinating me for some reason. The fact I was at the sort of nursery school on the estate and that sort of sleeping in the afternoon and the lady who was supervising the nursery was very anxious and told my mother that in the afternoon we had a little sweet or something to eat and that I’d swallowed the prune stones, which I did and I eat the prunes and the stones, and the lady was most concerned about it, but I think nothing happened but very vague memories and really that’s all….and again thinking that the buildings were built of stone I don’t know why, I’ve always remembered them as being grey but only ‘til I’ve seen the recent photographs, do I appreciate that in fact they were brick.