Childhood
“
I
don’t think I’ve got one specific memory from my childhood,
when I lived in Weybridge, it was mostly taken up with the war time, everyday was different, if it was the summertime you just
went out and played, it was surreal really. Before that we lived in the pub at North Wraxall, my father owned the pub, he was a professional violinist and he used to play in the silent movies in Weybridge and in Alton, Hampshire, which is where I was born, and he was also a violinist at the cinema. I was too young to see him play before we moved to Bath for a short period of time and then we moved to the pub where my father took the licence on at North Wraxall. That was where I was of an age where I could start to remember things, between the ages of 2 to 5. My memory there was that we used to make our own electricity, my father used to run a generator during the nighttime for the cars coming down the road, it was the only place around that there was electric light in the village. The engine used to start on petrol and then run on Paraffin and I remember one day going down to the tank
“
left: the violin owned by my great grandfather that he used to teach his students. Handed down to me as I used to play violin as a child, however it has never been restored.
on my own and opening the tap and flooding the place with Paraffin!
right: My great grandfather working as a waiter at a garden party event.
A Family History | 9
