Just a little Northern kid

I was just over two and a half years old when the family moved from Berking Terrace to Glensdale Road, literally 150 yards away. We were now officially living in East End Park rather than the York Road area, although both houses held LS9 postcodes. By now there were three of us kids and we were moving into a much larger house, it seemed like a huge mansion to us nippers! I remember sitting on granddad's knee, holding a pan of stew, as we hitched a ride to the new house in the removal van, a huge juggernaut to me at the time but probably just a short-wheelbase Lutonvan as we didn't really have much furniture to shift. We actually left a 'potty' in Berking Terrace but when we returned to retrieve it half an hour later some bugger had already snuck in and nicked it!

We moved in July of '66 so it would have been just after England won the World Cup though, unfortunately, I have no recollection of that momentous occasion. The house was a three-bedroomed, through mid-terraced council house with a long garden on the Templeview Terrace side and a smaller one on Glensdale Road. We had an inside bathroom with a fixed bath and toilet, with a built-in piece of string, the height of sophisticated luxury from what we'd been used to in Berking Terrace. The rooms seemed so spacious, but looking back it was probably just as much to do with the amount of furniture we had as the fact that we were only little kids at the time. My lasting recollection from this period of our time at Glensdale Road is the beautiful sunshine flooding through the single-glazed leaded windows into every room bathing the house and occupants in such positive, vibrant optimism. These early days were indeed very happy and carefree, we hadn't a worry in the world as Nana and Granddad helped Mam with the day-to-day running of things and helped out financially as best they could. However, the murky clouds of uncertainty were already gathering on the dark and distant horizon.

At best, at this age, I was considered a mischievous little monkey, at worst, a little twat! (in a nice way, I always try to convince myself). Much better than the term: 'Shithouse', by which I have often been referred to in my later, adult life. (By the way, the word, 'Twat', is a particular favourite of mine and features in much of my writing. Not used in an offensive way but more of an expression. I love the way it sounds, I love the way it's spelled and I love the way it 'twangs' off the tongue, and I love expressing it with much vigour and succulence, often in my own company when verbally admonishing my own indiscretions and misdemeanours. Worse things have happened at sea than the frivolous use of the word 'twat!' 'Tis what it is!).

By this stage in my short life, I just knuckled down to being my usual inquisitive little self and retired to bed as a happy, tired little twattish soul. My first real supernatural/psychic encounter was already well behind me. This event occurred whilst still a two-year-old at Berking Terrace and which remains etched in my mind as clear as a bell some fifty-odd years later. I would have to wait until I was a sixteen-year-old, whilst still at Glensdale Road, before I'd stumble upon my next unexplained spiritual experience.

^ Summer of '68. Family holiday at Bridlington. I'm the innocent-looking little twat on the far left.