I often find myself looking back on those early years in Malling, and the places that became our world.

We had so many “playgrounds,” back then, each one alive with memories, vivid and vibrant, just waiting now to be brought back into the light.

And though much time has passed, those memories still remain, quietly shaping who we have now become, and indeed what we have achieved, 

Now, at the age we are, it feels important to hold on to that power of recall, to keep those moments alive, before they are lost into that huge silent expanse... where forgotten memories drift quietly... gently slipping out of reach of those who never knew how to ask. 

 Those childhood haunts, were more than just spaces, they were the backdrop to our early adventures, our first friendships, our first steps toward understanding the world. Each corner had a story, each tree and path held a secret only we knew. 

Today, the world has preservation at its fingertips... cameras, recorders, and endless ways to capture every moment….We had word shaped stories passed from one ear to another. 

And yet, in ways that no photograph or movie could ever achieve, a reader’s imagination can be drawn into the depths and spaces of a page and paint those moments in richer detail, bringing the laughter, the mischief, and the fleeting magic of childhood vividly back to life. 

 As I write these recollections I had hoped I might invite you to walk with me through those early years, to see Malling the way this child saw it. 

But alas, you will never see it exactly as I did, or feel the way I felt. 

 The more I have delved into that old memory box, the more it has dredged up thoughts of times gone by, and faded testaments to an idyllic childhood spent in East Malling during the late 50s and early 60s.

Of course, I can occasionally summon up scenes, or events, that somehow fixed themselves in my mind, but it isn’t always a grand moment that calls the past back to me, very often it’s something small and fleeting. 

Like the familiar fragrance of newly cut grass, after Mr Woodcock had tended the cricket square on a warm summers afternoon, the distant clang of St James church bell striking the hour, or even the half forgotten melody of a song played on the radio, while Mum prepared Sunday lunch listening to Two Way Family Favourites for BFPO radio, featuring Cliff Mitchelmore and I believe his wife Jean Metcalfe.

Even the cricket green roller we played on as kids had an all too recognisable squeal to it while being towed. 

These senses, sounds, and smells, among many, can so easily be the breeze to the embers that light the flames... on forgotten memories that might otherwise have lain dormant.

We all have these recollections, its just that yours will be from a time and place unique to you. 

Clare Park estate was at the heart of so much of my childhood. 

It was from here that we began to forge friendships, some that would last a lifetime, and gather those early “life experiences” that shaped who we were to become.

My memories from that time, are now sometimes hazy, but always near, and a few seem to have held firm despite the passing years. Among the clearest are those with Kevin Handley and Steve Watson. The three of us built a friendship that was unhurried, mischievous, and endlessly curious.

Steve was the middle child in a family of five, just as mine would become in the years that followed. He had a way about him that made people smile without even trying, always happy, always ready with that infectious laugh of his. It was the kind of laugh that seemed to tumble out of him, and once it began the rest of us were so helpless we’d be laughing too, even if we didn’t quite know why.

At that time, very few had cars, and supermarkets were still an unnecessary intrusion into our lives of simplicity and innocence.

We didn’t have much in the way of material things. All three lads coming as we did from large families. But what we did have was freedom, the freedom to roam, to play, and to invent our own adventures in the vast playground that Malling offered. It was a kind of childhood many of today’s youngsters will never know, and one that still remains precious to me.

I’m sure I’m not imagining it, but the memories of those days always seem calmer, as though life itself moved at a gentler pace. 

Time seemed to stretch further back then, summers went on forever, and the winter snow always seemed deeper than it ever is now. I hardly remember the rain at all, though deep down I know there must have been plenty of it.

I can still picture the pets we had during that time. There was Whiskey, brother Phil’s cat, black with a white chest as I recall. Then there was Rusty, a black Labrador with a stubborn streak, who would clamp his teeth around the bottom of my jumper as I walked along the garden path, refusing to let go no matter how I tried to shake him off. 

And then there was the rabbit, a gift from my Uncle John, who used to breed them in his back shed. I’d pleaded endlessly with Mum and Dad to let me have one, and after much resistance they finally gave in. I remember feeding it on a strange mixture of dry porridge oats and used tea leaves, believing that to be perfectly sensible, because that’s what Id been told. 

It was a feisty little thing, and every time I tried to pick it up, it kicked with such ferocity that I half expected to lose a finger. To make matters worse, someone had told me the correct way to lift a rabbit was by its ears, advice I took quite literally. So there I was, a skinny six-year-old doing his best not to get scratched to bits every time I tried to move the poor creature. 

Looking back, I don’t think Mum and Dad were ever really “animal people” Our pets had a way of quietly disappearing over time. I don’t believe there was any cruelty in it, just a lack of attachment, perhaps, or of understanding what it means to live with animals. 

You need a certain temperament for that, a softness of heart that keeps you patient with muddy paws and chewed slippers. Mum and Dad simply weren’t made that way.

I also have memories of when Mum did the washing in the old Copper, which was a large metal boiler, made of copper she used for boiling clothes. I'm pretty sure it had its own heat source, but can't be sure. 

Clothes and bedding were immersed in the boiling water, to clean them. It must have been hard, labour-intensive work, but that’s what Mums did....The kitchen was the hub of the house, and was always a hive of activity. I would often watch mum, fascinated by the whole process.

Seeing her lift the steaming clothes with the long wooden tongs, each piece heavy with water, which today’s housewives would not get. Beside her, the mangle waited, two solid rubber rollers mounted in cast iron. Turning the handle took steady strength, the rollers groaning as they squeezed the water out, dripping into the bucket below. To us children, it seemed miraculous.

Eventually, the laundry would be pegged along washing lines in the garden, flapping in the breeze. Even now, that scent takes me straight back, not just to the washing itself, but to those quiet, ordinary days filled with warmth, laughter, and the gentle rhythm of Mum at work, and children at play.

During the early sixties one of our main sources of adventure came from the park we played in. It was no ordinary patch of green, it was a secret kingdom. Like an Aladdin’s cave for enquiring young minds.

There was a high wall that ran along the top of the Park, that we would dare each other to dash along, half in play and half in fear, running the gauntlet of PC Bubb whose station stood just opposite. He would bellow that he knew exactly who we were, and the truth is, he probably did. The police houses still stand today, though the local “Bobby” is long gone. Back then, the very thought of being caught walking that wall was enough to turn it into a challenge, one that would set our hearts racing.

There was the exception to the rule, however, when a blind eye might be turned once a year when the circus arrived on its annual visit to the village, parading past Blacklands School on its way to the Park.

Excitement would reach fever pitch as we sat on the wall, cheering the marching band and its performers as they passed by the Butchers, and the King and Queen Pub, turning left down New Road, and finally coming to rest in the Park.

We would scare ourselves silly with stories of wild animal escapees and how we would fight off gorillas and tigers with our unlimited store of conkers, bows and arrows, and wooden swords, all from the relative safety of our high wall perches… unless, of course, PC Bubb arrived!

Every tree seemed to to offer itself as a challenge for us to either scale its bows, or to harvest the Horse Chestnuts (Conkers) when in season. They would whisper stories of past adventures when the wind blew, and offer shade for us weary explorers and Red Indian fighters when the sun shone. 

Conker season was not a mere date in late August, just as playing Hopscotch or Tin Can Alley or maybe Pom Pom, was not a part of any timetable, but it was there, and often recognised by the lack of shoe laces in our shoes, and sore knuckles from the mistimed swing of a “sixer” that may have been soaked in vinegar, or some other concoction, in a vain attempt at toughening the shell 

 The paths that cut through the park like winding tracks forged by generations of foot soldiers before us, twisting like rivers through hidden corners circling round the impenetrable forests of tall green nettles, just waiting to inflict pain and an accompanying rash on those who dared to underestimate their resolve to “Get You”. 

Within those green thickets, Kev, Steve, and I, along with others I can’t quite recall, but I’m sure would have included Neil Whimpset and Icky Bum Witts, would build “camps,” inspired by a TV series popular at the time. I think it was called Ten Town, about a group of kids who created a town from cardboard boxes, or at least that’s how my memory remembers it.

Armed with sticks and twigs, we would hack our way through the nettles to carve out corridors, with little “rooms” branching off them. Our imaginations filled those spaces with adventure, each corner becoming the setting for a new game. 

Inevitably, there were casualties, as back then, no one had Jeans, and Levi’s were yet to appear, so shorts, T shirts, and sandals, were the general attire. The unlucky patient would be rushed to the “medical room,” where nettle stings were treated with a dab of spit on a dock leaf, firmly rubbed on the affected area until the recipients skin turned green.

In truth, we often collected worse stings to our legs and backsides while sitting down to be treated, than in the original mishap itself.  Not exactly “Emergency Ward Ten” but in our minds, it was a cure, and that was all that mattered.

Even the fallen leaves of autumn became treasures in “our” world. 

We would kick our way through their golden carpets, transforming them into medieval fortresses or secret “pom-pom hiding places,” each a kingdom of our own imagination There was no need for electronic gadgets, every stick, every leaf, every corner of the Park was a "Play Station" alive with adventure.

It was as if, for a time, I wore a magical pair of “memory-making” shoes. These were no ordinary shoes, not made of leather or cloth, but of memory itself. 

Whenever I slip them on, I wander back through the streets and rooms of my childhood, tracing every laugh, every scrape, every small wonder I had known.

But in reality, those shoes were never truly mine to keep. 

Each hurried step, each scraped knee, each secret adventure pressed quietly into their soles, filling them with my stories. 

And yet, all too soon, they would be scuffed, outgrown, and passed on, or perhaps simply left behind, ready to cradle someone else’s memories.

With every new wearer, my private recollections slipped away, leaving only the faintest echo of my childhood behind. 

The shoes, however, I'm sure, carried on, gathering new stories, new laughter, new dreams. 

And so time, as it will, moves on, leaving me with the quiet, bittersweet knowing that even the most treasured things belong, in the end, only to memory itself.

My first years in Malling weren’t spent at Winterfields, as many might assume, but at Clare Park. 

After coming into this world, born in my Nan and Grandads house at 69 Coveyhall Road, Snodland. I lived at No1 Lime Crescent with Mum and Dad and my two older siblings, Phillip and Linda, for about 8 years, until Karen came along, making us four.

I can still picture myself sat outside, beneath the front room window, in Malling, lost in my game of “Jack and Bill” tracing roads and tracks into the earth with a child’s imagination, when, suddenly, my world was interrupted, by my Aunty Pat who burst outside, her face glowing with excitement. 

Before I knew it, she had scooped me up in her arms.

“Come and see your little sister!” she squealed with delight, hurrying me upstairs. 

There, in the stillness of the bedroom, Mum lay cradling a tiny bundle. 

That was the moment I first set eyes on my younger sister, Karen, a moment I was too young to fully grasp, but one that then reshaped our family.

Terry wouldn’t arrive until later, after we had moved back to Snodland.

So for that time we were a family of 6

 This imaginary duo, “Jack and Bill,” had first emerged in my memory some time earlier, as Phil and I played under the blankets of the bed we shared. 

Instead of sleeping, we would play cops and robbers with a couple of Matchbox cars, destined for the garage Dad had started to build for us. 

He had fashioned it out of used Matchboxes, stuck together with glue, like bricks, perched on an upturned tabletop. 

I don’t think he ever quite finished it, but the two main characters of our games, Jack and Bill, had already taken hold in our imaginations.

We would Top and Tail at that time, but I’m not altogether sure why, as I think it was a 3 bedroomed house. I can only assume it was due more to the lack of beds rather than lack of rooms.

During that time, as I recall, I had a peculiar habit, where I would bite down hard on the corner of my feather pillow. Why I did it, I have no idea. 

The ritual came to an abrupt end one night when the whole house was in a deep sleep. 

Phil suddenly let out a scream that could have woken the entire neighbourhood. 

Dad came crashing into the bedroom to see what had caused the commotion. 

It turned out I hadn’t bitten the pillow at all, I had latched onto Phil’s big toe instead. 

The pain sent him into a frenzy, and the household was soon roused. Suffice to say, my little habit ceased that very night.

 As with most childhood memories, sunshine was obligatory back then, and summers seemed endless, turning ordinary days into treasure hunts. 

There were quiet spaces where a child’s imagination could run wild, towering trees that challenged our courage, and streams that felt like rushing rivers to us daring explorers, who, on any given day, might gather spent Lolly sticks from round the estate, and weave them into toy rafts, or race then singularly, down the road gulley's, after a heavy shower. Or if the mood took us we would sit on opposing curbs and ping tiny gravel stones from the road at each other until one or all of the lolly sticks had broken, or something else had grabbed our attention.

It was a world of our own making, alive with mischief, laughter, and the endless possibilities of childhood.

Back then the trees were everywhere, thick and plentiful, and each one became part climbing frame, and part adventure. We named them like old friends, always with a story attached. 

There was the Step Ladder tree, so named because of its low branches that seemed perfectly spaced, as if designed for us kids with more enthusiasm than sense. Then came the Single Barrel and Double Barrel, trees christened after the guns we’d seen on Rawhide and Gunsmoke.

Each of us dreamed of being the Lone Ranger one day, and this was reflected in our games of Cowboys and Indians. Imaginary bows and arrows seemed to live in every pocket of our play. They were invisible until danger showed its face, and then, like all conjured things, would appear at once. 

If you were lucky you might have a cap gun with a roll of caps that came in a small white paper drum resembling two bottle tops stuck together, they were a neat coil of gunpowder dots on a green or red strip for ammunition. 

If not, the two‑finger pistol drawn from your shorts made its own convincing sound, though your cheeks would start to ache if you fired too many rounds. 

Or you could reach behind your shoulder, make the satisfying whoosh of pulling an arrow from an imaginary quiver, and let it fly. 

Ammunition was never a concern, it never ran out. 

And even if you were hit, you only stayed “dead” for a few seconds before leaping back into the fray, good as new.

But when all hope was lost, when you were cornered and there was no escape, there was always the ultimate lifesaver...the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. 

All it took was a desperate shout of “Fein nites!” 

Where that phrase came from, I’ve no idea. Yet somehow, every kid knew exactly what it meant... Stop! I’m not ready!

And who could forget the infamous Two Rivers Tree? 

Kevin had discovered that if you stood halfway up and aimed your pee at just the right spot, it would split half way down, into two perfect streams and run along separate branches…. Childish? Absolutely…. Hilarious?... Even more so. 

Especially if someone happened to be standing under the wrong branch below.

The Beehive Tree came with its own myth too 

Apparently Kevin and I were sat in it when it blew down. Where that tale started I’ve no idea, but we never denied it. Why spoil a good legend when it boosted your street cred? 

 And then there was the marvellously christened "Shit Bugger Tree"

Even now, the name alone makes me smile. 

Its story is bound forever with one of my happiest memories of Kev, my partner in mischief, my brother in spirit, taken far too soon, yet never absent from my heart. 

That day was the day of days. 

For weeks, perhaps months, Kev and I had schemed, plotted, tried and failed, in our repeated attempts to conquer that grand old Beech tree, standing sentinel just inside the entrance to the Park, long before the community centre ever appeared, but pretty much on that footprint 

Tall, ancient, and impossibly proud, it was defended on all sides by a dense thicket of saplings, a natural fortress that guarded its broad trunk and denied us easy passage. The lowest branches, were thick and strong, and hung there irresistibly close, but just above our reach, as though daring us to leap, to prove our courage, to earn our way up. 

But on this day... this golden day... Kev and I knew with absolute certainty... that tree would be ours.

Whether by careful plotting or by some twist of fate, I can’t quite recall, but the moment had arrived. This was it. The chance we had been waiting for, the key that would make everything possible. 

 Kev’s mum’s washing line had snapped. 

That tired old cord, worn thin and freckled with frays, was suddenly our prize, the very tool we needed to pull off our latest conquest. 

The day itself carried its own drama, in the shape of a restless breeze that shook the air, and grey clouds promised rain that never actually came.

The trees, I remember, wore their full cloak of leaves, and cow parsley was emerging as tall green stems, with a filagree crown of delicate white flowers among the undergrowth. So it must have been spring, you could smell it in the damp earth and see it in the fresh new growth around us. 

I called round for Kevin, and he was eager to show me the spoils of his mum’s washing line. 

Without a word spoken, we both knew this was it. 

We marched to base camp at the foot of the conquest, brimming with purpose, and began hatching our plan. 

It was around 1963 or ’64, and from what we had seen watching mountaineers on the television, we knew exactly what was required... an anchor point. 

Our harness, a frayed length of clothesline, needed to be secured to a sturdy branch and, after several wild throws and missed catches, we finally managed get it over the lowest bough we could reach…. 

We also knew, of course, that for safety we should be tied together. 

We’d seen that on the television too. 

So, with great seriousness, we wrapped the line around our waists and secured it with the only knot we knew...probably a granny knot at best. 

I was to lead, with Kev following close behind. 

Up we went, hands clutching at bark, feet scrabbling against the trunk. 

We were within a whisker of our first glorious objective when disaster struck...the line gave way with a sharp crack, and in an instant we tumbled into the thicket of saplings below, me landing squarely on top of Kev in a crumpled heap.

Undeterred... bruised but not beaten, we launched our second attempt. This time we succeeded. 

She was ours, the mighty tree had been conquered, another daring raid completed.

All that remained was the descent.

We were less keen to rely on the treacherous rope again...it had snapped once too often so we devised another method. A great thick branch stretched outwards, tapering off about ten feet from the ground. 

We decided that if we could straddle it as we were, bumping ourselves along in our khaki shorts, we reckoned that by the time it thinned out, and was a little closer to the ground we might be able to dangle and drop safely. 

So, one behind the other, we began our awkward shuffle. 

But the grand old tree seemed to sense our intrusion, and a sudden gust of wind swept through her, setting branches swaying, and letting out a huge roar as leaves and branches joined together in an orchestra of protest for what seemed like and age.

The giant Beech shuddering as though in protest at our daring. 

Fear and panic drove us on, but instead of silence, our fear adopted a response that was spontaneous, absurd, and perfectly ours.

Together, driven by fear, we shouted into the bluster, 

 “Shit Bugger! Shit Bugger! Shit Bugger!” 

 Words forbidden from our young mouths, yet somehow, in that moment, the only ones that would do. It bolstered us on and gave us courage and the determination we needed

The more the wind howled, the more we shimmied and shouted…

“Shit Bugger! Shit Bugger! Shit Bugger!” 

At last we reached the end of the branch, but it still seemed like a long drop 

Hearts pounding, together we bellied over the branch and dangled by our arms, legs kicking in the air. 

Then, one, two, three….and we let go. 

Down we dropped, hitting the ground with a thud that rattled our bones but still left us laughing. 

We rolled over, staring up through the canopy as if gazing at the summit we had just conquered. 

The lady of the Park loomed above us, no longer an adversary but a mountain subdued, a giant that would forever bear the mark of our victory. 

Kev, so excited, let out a yell, half-pain, half-glory, and I joined in, our voices carrying across the park. 

We punched the air, slapped each other’s backs, and danced about in wild celebration. 

Scratched, bruised, scuffed, and muddied, but utterly triumphant. 

For a fleeting moment we were not two scruffy lads in khaki shorts, held up with the obligatory Snake belt!... but mountaineers on Everest, explorers planting their flag on new worlds, or Kings returning from foreign conquests. 

And then for the final throw of the dice…. In the afterglow of our jubilation we discovered the truth…

Poor Kev had landed squarely in a huge pile of dog poo, which had smeared itself gloriously up his back, and somehow into his hair!! 

So there it was...The Reason... The Legend...and The Christening, of that grand old beech which, for Kev and I, from that day forth, would always be affectionately remembered, in laughter and disbelief, as... 

 The Shit Bugger Tree….A Tree for All Seasons. 

 Those were the days when adventure started before we’d even got out of bed. 

There were mornings during the colder months, we would have to scrape the frost off the bedroom window. 

Sometimes it was on the outside, sometimes on the inside, sometimes both. 

If you could see out at all, you knew it was going to be a good day. 

Breakfast was a bit of a lottery too. If you were lucky, there was a slice of bread and dripping, on a Monday after a Sunday roast, or bread and sugar, if there was no jam. 

Either way, it was enough to launch us into the great outdoors, where we vanished until tea time. 

And tea time wasn’t some Instagram worthy, avocado-on-toast affair. No. 

You ate what was put in front of you, and if you didn’t eat it on Monday, it came back Tuesday, reheated and sulking. 

Brussels sprouts had the power to make you gag and cry, but you still had to eat them. Gravy wasn’t a rich, meaty sauce; it was an Oxo cube in a measure of boiling water, poured over lumpy mashed potatoes, instantly making them into sloppy brown wallpaper paste 

Everything, and I mean everything, was cooked in lard. Vegetables, meat, bread, probably even the tea... I obviously jest... 

Olive oil was something you read about in the Bible, or heard about on TVs Popeye...(if you know...you know ok?) 

And sunflower oil sounded like something you’d rub on a horse. 

Yet somehow, we grew up strong, fast, and impossible to poison.

Bath’s were taken only on a Sunday evening, but you had to light the coal fire to heat the water cylinder first. 

The fire place was a light brown tiled affair in the front room, befitting that in every council house of that era, and I remember Dad, carefully applying transfers of Sea going Galleons, one in each corner and a big one in the centre. Its strange the detail you are able to recall 

Or you would have a strip wash sitting on the draining board with your feet in the sink, watching your mates playing in the car park at the back of 1 Lime…

Oh and the soap was Carbolic soap!

We didn’t need protein shakes or vitamin tablets...we had frostbite, sprouts, and lard. 

And honestly, I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

Kevin, Steve, and I, were just a part of three of the families living on the estate, there were many more 

We would decide each morning what adventure would occupy us. Sometimes it was a kickabout at the top of the park, if anyone had a ball. “Mugsy” would show off his fancy moves, wiggling his legs over the ball in ways only he could. 

At other times, our day carried us to the swings outside the old institute, that curious place of green painted corrugated iron and timber, etched in my memory like something from another age. 

Though the area in front of it seemed like a kingdom of wonders, a huge great slide standing proud, stood midships, it had a surface of highly polished brass as I remember, and every now and then someone would apply some wax of some description, making it so fast it was scary. 

Two sets of swings stood either side of this, their chains polished smooth where countless small hands had clung, the solid oak seats, weathered by the long passage of time. 

Nearby in one corner, was a see-saw that seemed to sing with every rise and fall, nothing a squirt of oil wouldn’t put right, and a roundabout that spun us into dizzy fits of laughter. 

But best of all was the sandpit, and when newly replenished with fresh golden sand, it gleamed like a little beach of our own, though more often it carried the sour trace of mischief left behind by older boys. 

Even now, if you look closely, the faint outline of that sandpit remains in front of one of the benches, a shadow of my childhood that refuses to fade.

Memories, I’ve found, are always a little subjective, softened at the edges, or sweetened by time. 

We rarely recall the rainy days, unless they carried with them some event that fixed them in place.

Over the years, when I’ve spoken with those who shared that same time and space, I’ve been struck by how their recollections echo my own. 

They too carry a fondness for the world we grew up in. 

Like me, they hold reverence not only for East Malling itself, but for the characters who gave it life and colour.

I often think of them all on my walks, half expecting to bump into familiar faces. 

But of course, like me, they’ve all moved on, making somewhere else their “home.”

Each time I re-read what I’ve written, I feel the tug of temptation to list the names of every person who made my life as rich as memory allows. But perhaps that isn’t needed. 

If these words reach you with a sense of recognition, or a flicker of connection, then you are already among those special people, and you are already deeply engraved on the memory I carry, and in the cherished thoughts of many

It was a time and place when everyone knew everyone. Clare Park was never lonely. 

It was alive, not bustling, not crowded, but quietly, steadily alive. It was a village after all 

On Thursday evenings the A1 fish and chip van would rumble in, instantly recognised as the cream-and-green van, its copilot ringing a handbell to announce his arrival. 

They would stop just inside the estate at the junction of Lime and Beech 

For us children, the food inside was more dream than dinner, a luxury rarely within reach, but still, the scent drifted through the air, wrapping around us, teasing our taste buds, and setting our stomachs growling in unison. 

Often (it seemed) on Friday mornings, we would come downstairs to the remains of a fish supper, a bundle of crumpled newspaper on the drainer, this, of course was how the dinner was wrapped in those days, the only evidence of the meal our parents had shared the night before. 

A well-earned treat for two hard-working souls. 

Yet even those memories are scattered and uncertain, because such indulgences could never have been a weekly ritual. 

Money was never that freely available, so they were probably only able to indulge every now and then, but enough to be cherished. 

Mum and Dad were a young couple, only just setting out on their journey together, they had lives before we came charging in and turned everything upside down, but those memories were never written down, never kept carefully enough. And so, as time has a way of doing, their recollections have drifted into the mist, half-remembered, half-imagined, slipping quietly beyond our reach now. 

They will remain untold apart from the odd snippet remembered here and there, perhaps now gone forever, because we never thought to ask in time or detail, while the chance was still ours. 

Dad came from a big family of eight children, four girls, Eileen, Jean, Pat, and June, who sadly passed away too soon, and four boys, 

Dad (Peter), Rodney, John, and David. 

He was a strong man with firm family values, working tirelessly to give his own children the start he himself never had. Often working seven days a week, we would not see him in the morning before setting off to work, and we would be in bed asleep before he came home. 

That’s probably why I have so few “clear” memories of him in my earliest years, apart from the occasional well-deserved spanking, delivered with more earnestness than malice I’m sure. 

That seemed to be the pattern of our relationship throughout my childhood and into adulthood. 

I never quite felt I gave him the sense of pride I so desperately wanted him to feel. Looking back, I’ve no doubt I was a “difficult” child and gave him plenty of consternation.

Mum, on the other hand, was a softie. She, too, came from a large family, from Huddersfield in Yorkshire. There were four girls, Barbara (Mum), Kathleen, Audrey, and Eileen, and two boys, David and Trevor. Trevor wasn’t a blood relative, and I never really understood exactly where he fitted in or how he came to be part of the family. 

Mum worked hard, as so many mothers of that post-war generation did. She had fallen for Dad when he was serving in the RAF, after intercepting a letter he had written to her mother and asking if she might reply instead. 

Writing this makes me realise how hard it is not to dig too deeply into the lives of everyone who played a part in my story. Each of them could fill an entire chapter of their own, and while they all had a huge impact on me, I think it best to leave their fuller stories for another time.

 During the summers in East Malling, the ice cream vans would arrive, and the children of the estate would erupt into a frenzy. “Please, Mum!” we would plead, voices full of anticipation. 

“Deal Beach Parlour,” whose tunes, instantly recognisable, would sing out, teasing us with a promise of sweet cool relief on hot days, but we were a family of six (if you included Mum and Dad) so it was never a certainty, but a welcome treat if it did. 

We also had the grocery van, a lifeline in the days before Tesco. 

Most things, including milk, bread, and meat, could be bought from the back of different vans that called round the estate on a regular basis, each item carefully weighed and handed over with a friendly nod. 

And wrapped in Newspaper, or put into mums own shopping baskets, 

Plastic bags weren’t even thought about in those days. Or it was a walk for one or two of us up to “Deers, or Robins, the local News agents, to get Mum a pack of five “Weights” I even remember Mr Robins selling individual cigarettes. 

Strange as it seems now, we could walk in and be handed them without question, despite them knowing how young we were. 

But times were different then, we were raised with principles, with respect for life and for those around us, especially our elders and anyone in authority. 

Perhaps that’s what’s missing in the society today. We only needed a “look” from Dad to know our boundaries, and Mum never shied away from a sharp slap if it was deserved. 

Some say discipline is harsh, but I can’t help thinking that the so-called do gooders have led us to pay the price for loosening those standards. 

An opinion I hold in lots of issues we seem to be suffering with today, Maybe it will get better, but not in my lifetime I fear... And then there was Mrs. Harris, selling sweets from a tray at her front door. I think she had two children and lived next door to the Scotts. 

On different days, I might struggle to remember their names, but not this day, the older boy was Lance, and the little girl we always called “Weenie.” And I remember the “Rag and Bone man,” who would visit the estate, offering a prize in exchange for old clothes, a small bow and arrow, perhaps. No doubt there were other treasures to choose from, but for a young boy like me, that was the only prize worth having. 

Needless to say, the prizes never came our way, because inevitably we were always wearing the rags he wanted! 

 Certain places still bind us together in memory. 

The “Blue Door.” 

The “Washer.” 

The old cricket pitch roller. 

The Green Hut. 

The Beech tree where we gathered on Sunday afternoons for “Sunshine Corner.” 

These were more than landmarks, they were touchstones of belonging, woven into the very fabric of who we became. 

That Blue Door stood in a wall of brick and ragstone, its weathered wood seemed to be guarding the entrance to the research station, an agricultural farm where new crops were developed in the years after the war. It is, I believe, one of my earliest memories, sitting in a pram, pushed by Mum, as she made her way to the fields to pick fruit or dig potatoes. 

To me, that door was more than wood and paint, it was a magical gateway. 

On one side lay New Road, familiar and plain, (but without the traffic we’ve become accustomed to now) though nothing, in my eyes, was plain about East Malling, and on the other, an enchanted world. 

The moment we passed through, everything shifted. 

Birds seemed to have been waiting for us and would break into song, the air seemed crisp and clean, forming as delicate tear drops on the leaves and foliage of everything it touched on those early Spring mornings. 

To our left the brook stream, its rippling chorus gently drifting by, on its journey to the paper mill and beyond. 

The narrow footpath leading us up and across the old footbridge, where we would stop and look at the trout beneath in its crystal clear waters glistening and glinting in the early morning sun... then out across the open fields, where mum would start her day working, and we would run and play 

It was an idyllic, almost magical time for a child, an escape, a secret sanctuary stitched deep into the fabric of my childhood.

I’ve tried many times over the years to capture the memories of my past, but only now, as I approach my seventies, have I truly committed myself to it. 

Inevitably, time has softened the edges and blurred some of the finer details, but what remains is perhaps more important, the feelings, the atmosphere, the essence of a life once lived.

I often ask myself what it is that draws me back so insistently. 

Why do I return, again and again, to a chapter of life that, in the grand measure of things, lasted barely eight years? And yet those years, fleeting as they were, left an imprint deeper than many of the decades that followed. 

They were years of innocence, discovery, and belonging, a time when the world seemed whole, when its boundaries were small enough to be known, yet vast enough to be filled with wonder.

It’s not so much the facts I look to preserve, though these are really important, but the spirit of those days, the laughter that carried across gardens, the quiet sense of safety that comes only in childhood. 

These memories have become my refuge, my compass, and in writing them down, I hope not only to honour them, but perhaps to understand why they continue to call me home.

The South Ward playing fields at Clare Park were a natural magnet for the travelling circus and the funfair on their yearly visits. With their wide, open stretches of grass and the estate brimming with young families, it was the perfect venue, and the showmen knew it.

Word would ripple quickly among us children the moment the first wagons appeared, piled high with the mysterious frames and fittings that, almost overnight, would be transformed into the bright lights, rides, and stalls of the fair. 

The buzz of excitement spread through the estate like wildfire.

We would stand in awe as the Bumper Cars, the Octopus, and the Chairplanes seemed to rise out of the ground itself, and of course our favourite Swingboats, each piece of machinery holding a fascination of its own. 

An army of eager children, myself included, would hover about, offering our “help,” as though our presence alone might somehow speed the process along. Although, as I remember, the actual chance of us getting to ride on any of the attractions was generally out of reach of kids from large families such as ours, but that never dampened our excitement

One year, that eagerness ended badly for me. On a dare, I was tempted into running across the bare framing of the Dodgems before the running boards were fitted. I tripped on a crossbeam and landed forehead-first on another, earning a nasty cut and a scar that I still carry today. A fairground worker scooped me up and carried me home, and if I’m not mistaken, Mum took me on to the West Kent Hospital in Maidstone, where they patched me up with a butterfly stitch and sent me on my way.

Back then, there were no solicitors, no endless forms, just the understanding that children would get into scrapes. 

Life carried on, and so did the funfair. 

As I recall, Mum was even gifted one of the better prizes from the stalls, a pair of porcelain ornamental cats, won either from the Lucky Straws or perhaps the Ducks, a small gesture of compensation, and a reminder of how differently things were handled in those days.

Scrapes and incidents seemed to follow me throughout childhood, as though I were a magnet for misadventure. 

Perhaps it was simply the natural consequence of a restless curiosity, a desire to test boundaries and see what lay just beyond the safe and familiar.

I broke my arm tripping over a root while running through the park, too intent on the thrill of the chase to notice what lay beneath my feet. The gentle nudge from Steve, didn’t help I’m sure! 

I joined in a game of Leap Frog with older boys on the Research, eager to prove myself among them, but ended up pinned beneath their weight on a hidden plank of wood, a protruding nail finding its way to my eye. 

Another time, a misjudged leap from the sandpit left me with a cracked shin and an infection that, had it not been caught in time, might have cost me my leg.

At the time, these were simply painful lessons, endured and soon forgotten, as children are quick to bounce back. 

But in memory they take on a different meaning. They remind me of the boundless energy of youth, of how fiercely we threw ourselves into life without hesitation or fear. Each scar and scrape became a quiet marker of that fearless curiosity, the same curiosity that shaped not just my childhood, but the person I would become.

Alas, after only a few short years, Dad’s restlessness began to stir, and before long we were preparing to leave my idyllic Malling, and the friendships I had so quickly woven there.

I’m sure I had no part in the planning, nor was I asked if it was something I might like. At eight years of age, I had no right to expect that, and I can understand now Mum and Dad’s need to spread their wings.

At the time, I could not have grasped the full weight of it, nor understood why such a move was necessary. Yet looking back, I see it as part of a quiet pattern shaping me, each change another stitch in the fabric of the boy I was becoming.

I have no memory of the move itself, nor of the farewells it must have carried. 

I cannot recall the last walk down our garden path, or even the month of our leaving. The car journey is lost to me too. 

All I have now is imagination, an older self stepping into the shoes of that younger boy, knowing those shoes no longer fit.

This particular uprooting was bound up in a three-way exchange between my Nan and Grandad, a family called the Allinghams, and ourselves.

Our journey led us back to Snodland, to the very house where my life had begun. Thus, 69 Covey Hall Road became more than a birthplace, it became a backdrop for one more adventure along the developing pathway that was to lead to who I am today.

And with that return came fresh companions, unfamiliar classrooms, and the early lesson that life does not stand still. Each move, each chapter, carried me onward, quietly teaching me that change itself would be the one constant thread woven through my story.

 I have come to realise, through the steady rhythm of these recollections, that one of the quiet secrets of consistent writing about a past so far away from the present, lies in passion. 

Passion, not in the fiery, dramatic sense, but in the steady, glowing kind, the sort that develops when you truly care about the lives, the places, and the moments you are setting down.

Memory on its own is a slippery thing too. 

Left to itself it frays, it withers, and at times it tricks you. But passion stitches it together. It fills in the shadows with colour, the gaps with texture, and the half-forgotten corners with light. 

When I sit with these recollections, it isn’t only about names, dates, or who lived where or when, it is about what it felt like to be there, a boy seeing it all through his own eyes, and a man looking back with the tenderness of time.

Passion makes me linger. It allows me to write not only that Covey Hall was bigger than Lime Crescent, but that it was darker, more brooding, and how that difference struck the boy I was. 

It reminds me that I do not need to invent detail, I need only to follow the threads, and the smallest memory can open into a scene. 

The faces of neighbours, the sound of a door closing, the feel of a road underfoot, passion brings these fragments together, not as cold facts, but as living recollections.

So, I now see that consistency in writing about the past is not a matter of discipline alone, or of memory’s detail, but of a kind of devotion. 

If you care enough about the people and the places, they will come back to you, not perfectly perhaps, but truthfully enough to catch their essence. And in that way, the past lives again on the page.

Covey Hall was, to my young eyes, a dark and rather daunting house, certainly much bigger than the snug little place we had left behind in Lime Crescent. It felt unfamiliar, even though I knew of it well enough, for my Nan and Grandad had once lived there.

It stood as one of ten council houses, lined neatly in a small cul-de-sac. 

Ours was the third one down on the left, with Dad’s brother David just two doors further along. 

I never did know who lived in the very first house at the top, but I remember the Williamsons to our left, the Bradleys to our right, then Uncle Dave, the Watts, the Sheldons, the Greens, the Morgans, and one more beyond them, a family whose name, for all my straining, I cannot now recall.

It has struck me of how different my recal of this era is. I was only there for four years, and I know, it holds many memories, and much adventure and excitement all lived at that slower pace during the early 60’s

But it was different, it was like starting over again, and learning of new places, and people,