1941 - 1946
Early Years
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| 1944 Me on an Engine built by Pop at Husbands Bosworth |
I was born in Camarthen Infirmary on 18th March 1941 after my poor Mum had been in labour for three days. At the time, my Pop was in the RAF and stationed at Pembrey, near Swansea. We lived at Danybank Farm in rented rooms. Pop tells me that to get me home from the hospital, he changed two of his car’s threadbare tyres with two from an Aircraft Ground Starting Trolley, reversing the action when I was safely home.
My earliest memory is of being in a large room with an enormous rubber dinghy. I suppose that to a three year old, everything looked large. This apparently was R.A.F. Husbands Bosworth in 1944 when Vickers Wellingtons were stationed there and I guess this was the Life Raft.
I have included here five photographs from before I remember anything, but are relevant because they include my parents, the three of my grandparents who were alive when I was born and my paternal Great Grandfather, John WARD.
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1941
9, Clifton Gardens, Canterbury
Fred, John & Elsie TURNER
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1941
Jack TURNER & Me
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1941
9, Clifton Gardens, Canterbury
John, Jack & Fred, TURNER & John WARD
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1941
Me & Betty TURNER
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1942
Me & Bessie SMITH
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1988
46, Ansell Avenue
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My next memory is of playing in my maternal grandmother’s garden in Chatham. Bessie SMITH had been a widow since 1932. 46, Ansell Avenue was a council house with a fair sized unkempt garden and I spent a lot of time searching for grasshoppers which were easy to hear and very difficult to find and catch. I cannot say that I remember much else about that time although I do believe that some visits were made to the seaside at ‘The Strand’ at Gillingham. The photograph of the house was taken in 1988 when Maria and I were on a memory trip for me.
I also remember visiting my Grandfather, Frederick William TURNER, who died in February 1946. This must have been at 9, Clifton Gardens, Canterbury and I seem to remember that he was in bed but I don’t remember any spoken words.
I was due to start school in Chatham in the September of 1946 but before I could, the family moved to Leeds where Pop had found a job and a house; it was after the move to Leeds that my memory becomes clearer concerning my childhood.
The first thing I remember about Leeds is being on a tram coming out of the City Centre and travelling to our new home at 5, Leysholme Crescent, Upper Wortley. My Mum asked where we should get off the tram and she was told to dismount at the Crown Cinema. This we did and then, having asked again, we promptly followed the tram up the road for another mile. The last part of that walk is up a very steep hill called Green Hill Lane. I don’t actually remember getting to the house, but Mum must have been worn out when we finally arrived.
The trams could not cope with Green Hill Lane and so everyone who lived on the estate had to walk to the bottom of the hill and catch the tram on Oldfield Lane. Eventually, the trams were replaced by buses on this route and we got a Number 66 bus right up to the estate.
No known photographs exist of the house until I took this one in 2000.
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| 5, Leysholme Crescent |
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