Robot

I was born in the town of Wolverhampton during the final days of November 1948, my brother Charles appeared some two years later. My somewhat quick tempered Father, Thomas Frederic William, was a sewing machine engineer and my mother, Anne Dorothy, a peaceful, loving woman who worked hard all her life, scrimping and saving as she went. For the first four or five years of my childhood we lived in an ‘American’ prefab, and I have very few memories of my early childhood at all. I know that many people say they can recall all of their childhood and can recall incidents out of the air, just as a magician pulls a rabbit out of a top hat, but I really have virtually no memories of my life in that abode all. The prefab had a postage stamp sized front lawn and it wasn’t much bigger at the rear, much of that space taken up by a corrugated steel shed. When I was around five years of age we moved into a new semi-detached council house, just ten minutes walk away. It was a corner house with an enormous living room, that my parents were never able to keep warm in the Winter months, and it was here I discovered the novelty, excitement and dangers of a flight of stairs for the first time, they were covered in a simple roll of corded material and tacked down onto each step, and it would remain so until my mother was able to save up for carpeting, which was to be quite some time away. The front lawn was now an enormous affair that stretched around the house and seemed to take a lifetime to cut.

I don’t remember ever thinking we needed or wanted a TV, but what I did know was that dad’s pride and joy was the Phillips mains radio, which would always be switched on whenever he was about. We’d never owned a TV while we were living in the prefab, and had only ever seen one previously, that was in a neighbours of my Grans, where once in a while a crowd would gather in the evening for a short glimpse of this new marvel. However at some point after the move, I can recall a vast box being delivered that contained our first TV. I can remember turning that box, into which my brother and I could easily fit with room to spare, into a small cabin and playing in it for many weeks, it was far more fun than the TV. However saying that, I do recall some early children’s TV programmes including, Picture Book, with Patricia Driscoll, Andy Pandy, Bill & Ben the Flower Pot Men, The Lone Ranger, Twizzle, Torchy and Four Feather Falls. I have only one other recollection, that of a large and menacing robot and a fierce gorilla. I’ve no idea which channel and we only had two, but do remember keeping my distance from the TV and peeping at it from behind an armchair. I have since discovered that it was an episode or episodes of the Columbia serial ‘The Monster and the Ape’, but it spooked me for many weeks after. Here’s a newspaper photo, featuring yours truly, the article is about Gypsies and how they were making the area dirty! Don’t asked me how my family became involved, I’ve no idea.