Early years in London 1949-1955

Although I was born in Jersey my father continued his accountancy training after the war and we lived at Park Mansions on Prince of Wales Drive in Battersea. I can remember the flat being quite large and all painted with grey 'distemper' which was the emulsion paint of the day. We were on the second floor with no lift and I had a long suffering nanny called Winifred who used to spend her time going down to collect my toys that I threw over the balcony onto unsuspecting passers by.

My maternal grandmother was very embarrassed that her daughter lived in Battersea and always referred to it as South Chelsea, but it was a lovely part of London to live in with Battersea Park and all that that offered right opposite us. Around the corner in Albert Bridge Road lived Dad's aunt Dorothy Bishop and I remember going there to watch the coronation on a television with a screen about the size of a postage stamp. The family down below us were called Ankaster, he was the caretaker, and they had a daughter called Angie. They also had a car, an original Ford Popular. Very few people including us had a car.

Before the war my father and uncle had shared a flat with Johnny Birt in Elizabeth Street, and he and his wife Mairi lived further up Prince of Wales Drive until they went to live in Jersey. Mairi gave us our first dog, a daschund called Biffer. Mum and Dad's other great friends were Brian and Pauline Johnson, Brian was then an early commentator at the BBC. Pauline was a photographer and used to take endless colour photographs of us all which took months to develop!

My mama hated living in London with the dirt and the smog, and when Pooh was due, a great friend of hers Peggy Graham was living in Milford where her husband Bill Graham was the doctor. Peggy's father Frank Collas had also been at Victoria College in Jersey and had gone out to Chile with my grandfather. Peggy suggested coming to look at a house and again I remember Dad hiring a car and us driving, with Aunt Dorothy but not with Mum, down to Milford in a thunderstorm to see a part of Milford Cottage that was for sale. It was lovely, a large house that had been split up and our part had beautiful high ceiling rooms and access to the huge garden.

So it was that after Pooh was born in 1954, we moved down to Milford the following year.