beginnings

I should start at the beginning!  During the Second World War my older brother was born in Plymouth, where my grandparents lived.  When the war ended, my parents moved back to Twickenham to the family home of my paternal grandmother.  The problem with the maternal grandparents was that they were Rechabites and considered alcohol to be the demon drink.  My father enjoyed beer and whisky and because of the friction this caused, he moved back to London.  I was the second son, born towards the end of 1946 and my parents had by then acquired a prefab from the council into which the four of us moved.  It was the most wonderful home!  Eighteen months later, my younger brother was born.  In 1950, another brother arrived and, in 1955 our little sister was born in the prefab!  We were therefore all seven of us in a little two-bedroomed prefab!  My mother had been a Methodist in her home village of Honicknowle.  From the start, in Twickenham, she visited the Methodist Church to enquire about Sunday School.  She was told that five years old was the minimum age to start.  This was no good for my mother!  So we all started in the Salvation Army - good twenty minute walk from our house - because the Salvation Army would accept anyone!!  Thus it was that, as a babe in arms, I went to the Salvation Army in May Road, Twickenham.  It became my life;  I joined the junior choir and the junior band and learned to read music and to play a brass instrument.