David and I were born at Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where our father’s family lived. Our mother came from London and met Dad while she was on holiday in Ryde and he was on leave, being a regular soldier in the Royal Signals from 1932. They married in 1937 and David was born in November 1939, just after WW II started. Dad was evacuated from Dunkirk, posted to North Africa and finally to Burma. David and Mum were evacuated to Yorkshire but had only a short stay in the north. Mum thought it was even worse than the Isle of Wight.
Dad came back from Burma in 1946 and left the army after 14 years, taking a job in the telephone section of the GPO. I was born in September 1947, when David was 7 years and 10 months old. A big age gap then, which widened as we grew up, but then narrowed as we grew older.
Through my childhood David always had an aura of excitement, even danger, with a host of adventurous plans. He had all the brochures and forms for the £10 Assisted Passage to Australia. I don’t why he didn’t go. Later, against our father’s wishes, he signed on for the army, but Dad was able to cancel that plan. David had imagination and an array of talents that I envied then and still do. He could sing, baritone, draw and paint and was a natural performer. Another attribute which appealed to a little brother: he was fearless and had a reputation for winning fights, and had a lot. Some were in the ring, where he was a successful amateur, in fairground boxing booths, but often on less formal occasions!
We lived on a housing estate but seemed to have a semi-rural lifestyle, which was Dad’s background, but not Mum’s. We kept chickens (and a fearsome cockerel), a pet rook called Ronnie and a dog, Chum, which was really David’s and probably the start of his lifelong love of dogs. I clearly remember David, Dad and me taking Chum to the vet after he had been run over. A sad journey.
Parental conflict over town versus country resulted in our leaving the island in 1954, when Dad re-joined the army. He was posted as an instructor to a TA unit in Leagrave in Luton, Bedfordshire. David completed his schooling at Denbigh High School in Luton and had taken a course at Freshwater Agricultural College, with farming in mind.
In 1956 Leagrave was surrounded by farmland and here David started his first job. In the 1957 harvest David took me to the farm and we stacked sheaves into stooks of six as they rolled out of the back of the machine. It was a thrill to sit at break time with my big brother and the other farm workers. Life lessons continued and included presents of a sheath knife and an air pistol. Perfect gifts from a 17-year-old to a 9-year-old, but not universally appreciated.
David’s great friends were Jim Rogers, a Leagrave neighbour, and Mac (name not remembered). All in their late teenage years they were a major force and I overheard stories about their exploits, which seemed usually to result in minor injuries to the opposition.
In the late 50s the motor trade offered more excitement and opportunity for an 18-year-old than agriculture, so David started work in a motor body shop in Luton. Dad was then posted to 30 Signal Regiment and Dad, Mum and I moved to Hampshire and David visited from Luton. His arrival, always unannounced and usually with one or two friends, was a great excitement. He had begun to adopt the then motorcycle fashion: blue jeans, flying boots, an Irvine flying jacket, white silk scarf, goggles and hand painted helmet. What a hero to a 10-year-old!
Dad was away a lot and the highlights of that period centred on the arrival of big brother and friends. Once they took me away for a weekend and I rode pillion on Jim’s AJS. I have no idea where we went, but just to “go” was enough.
Dad’s final army move was to Blandford Camp at Blandford in Dorset and David came to live with us for a time. The camp’s perimeter road was used for motorcycle races, which may have encouraged David to come “home”. He had a Royal Enfield Constellation 750 and often rode the track, once clocking 138 mph on the straight which ran about 100 yards behind our house. However, there were occasional problems. One wet night I remember that he and a friend were riding the course and on one of the bends he lost control and arrived back with shredded jeans, grazed hips and plenty of bruises.
I was aware that David had got a reputation among some of the undesirable elements in Blandford, a garrison town. I don’t know how, but they treated him with respect and in my early teens my position as his little brother afforded me protection, and some kudos!
It was in about 1960 when I was 13 and David was 21 that he moved to Gloucestershire and began to make a different life.
“Family” was always important to David. There were very long periods when he and I didn’t see each other, and our correspondence was limited to cards at birthdays and Christmas or the telephone on New Year’s Eve. However, there was always the sense of a secure family link. I’m sure that having the strong and loving family which he and Val created was a great comfort to have around him, especially through his final difficult years.