Introduction

Throughout this story I have capitalised surnames; this is because, in genealogy, one of my hobbies, it is customary to do so to ensure that people with names that can be either first or surnames, such as George MARTIN or Martin GEORGE are identified correctly. The only exceptions are in various references that have nothing to do with me or my family. This includes names of authors of books that I have mentioned.

The other thing that may be noticed is that, throughout the story, I have used the 24 hour clock whenever I have given specific times.

Undoubtedly, my memory is variable at best and having consulted with a number of people still alive, I have realised how unreliable it is. For that reason, I have to admit that some of the content of this, the story of my life so far, may be anecdotal or apocryphal in places and as such should not necessarily be taken as the Gospel truth. I have to say that I have made every attempt to be as accurate and truthful as possible.

I will admit something here that very few of my family know and it concerns my Dad. He always wanted to be called ‘Pop’, but as a youngster and quite shy, I never wanted to appear different to the other children around me who all called their fathers ‘Dad’. Whenever I talked to anyone, I always referred to my ‘Dad’ not ‘Pop’ and this went on for most of his life with me probably avoiding calling him anything when face to face. In these memories, I have mostly referred to him as ‘Pop’ as a lasting memory to his wishes.

At Annex B, I have included a list of most of the people named in these chapters giving either, their relationship to me, or how I came to include them.

My wife was named Ann Marie KENNEDY at her birth registration instead of Anne Maria. This was because her Dad got it wrong when he put the ‘e’ in the wrong place, trust him. She has, however, always been known as Maria, which has caused some confusion because on all official documents her first name is given as Ann so, for instance, in a waiting room, when someone calls for 

Ann TURNER, it takes a while to realise that is Maria’s turn.

Throughout this story, with certain exceptions, I have named our younger son as Nick. As he got older he moved through the stages of being called Nicholas and Nicky before reaching Nick by which name he has been known for a long time. Incidentally, he was originally intended to be Anthony Nicholas TURNER, this following the other children with a first name beginning with the letter ‘A’. When he was born however, a nurse came along one day and called him Tony TURNER. Maria disliked that abbreviation so much that we changed the names around.

In places there is reference to quite a lot of technical stuff for which I apologise; feel free to skip these chapters, or parts thereof.

The Photographs included are not necessarily ones taken at the time of the story. This is especially true of homes that we have visited on memory trips.