Forget the bombs there’s fish and chips
I’VE finished it!
From not long after Adam was a boy I have been working on a lessthan-serious book. Now, for better or worse, for Richard or Dora, I’ve got to a stage where I am happy to share it with an adoring public. Only kidding; at least I’ll give my brother a copy on condition that he likes it.
I have just received a box-load full of shiny books and a note from my publisher, Cracker Printing, telling me we are ready to go. We intend to have a little launch on the evening of Tuesday, August 21.
I’ll tell you more about that over the next couple of weeks but it will be very nice to have the chance to say thank you to people for their support.
The book is called My Little Acorns and we might drink to its success despite its inadequacies.
My choice of title tries to reflect my own belief that all our lives have small beginnings that occasionally surprise us by where they finish up.
My own life started as part of a working class family with no money and a limited prospect of that ever changing. None of that mattered when compared with having a couple of parents who deeply cared about each other and who looked after my twin brother and me with even more love than we ever deserved.
We lived in a suburb of London called Hampton-on-Thames, not far from Hampton Court Palace, being born just nine months before the start of World War 2.
We were bombed out of our home in one of the first air raids on the capital. Despite all of us being asleep in the house at that time, none of us got a scratch. Our parents always told us how lucky we were to have survived. Thanks to the skill of our parents we have never had any personal memories of the event except to have been aware that we were homeless for several
‘‘ OUR OPPONENTS COULD DROP AS MANY BOMBS AS THEY LIKED UPON OUR HOUSE OR ITS REMAINS BUT AS LONG AS MY PARENTS COULD STILL FIND A FISH SHOP, ALL WAS WELL.
months and surrounded by piles of broken bricks and cracked walls.
Our most important outcome from that time was a passion for fish and chips and winkles.
Our opponents could drop as many bombs as they liked upon our house or its remains but as long as my parents could still find a fish shop, all was well.
My wife lived on Teesside in the North of England and always believed she lived in fish and chip paradise. She was wrong! There’s very little wrong with fish and chips bought at places like Whitby on the North East coast but a bloody great helping of them, wrapped in newspaper, with perfect crisp batter, from somewhere near to Hampton Court takes the top prize. Please don’t tell the Queen or the Royal Family……
I have been asked many times how a bloke from my background finished up living in Australia.
The answer to that question is very easy yet, at the same time, very hard.
It all started back in 1971 when, sight unseen, I was offered a job by the University of Queensland.
I had heard of it, vaguely, and I knew it was in a city called Brisbane which I only knew as a terrific Test Match venue and often hot and sweaty in summer. My wife thought it would be a great place to bring up a family.
The uni paid our air fares; we jumped on a plane and one week later I was giving my first lecture in this brilliant country called Australia.
When I first told my parents I was going to Australia, my mum was brilliant. She asked me one question. “Will you be better off there than here?”
I said “Yes”.
She said “that’s alright then!”