A DIFFERENT LIFE

Most children born in the 1950s would have had a predictable life to look forward to. The average family of mother and father living at home with two or three children was the norm. For some reason I was going to be different.

My mother had decided not to marry my father, even after his proposal of marriage, but to bring me up on her own. This was a major obstacle. The other was that my father came from Ceylon, resulting in me having a lightly tanned appearance. In 1957 such matters were frowned about by most.

For the first five years of my life, all these matters were of little importance to me. It was only after I started school at the age of six, did I find that I was not the same as all the other boys of my age.

From the age of six, my mother moved around the country with me, resulting in many changes of school. Around the age of eight, various adults thought that due to certain family circumstances, it might be best if I was put in a Home.

The National Children’s Home did its best to give children a good start in life. Without their intervention, my life would never have been as varied and as interesting as things have turned out.  Had I lived in the London flat from the age of eight, with little opportunity for my mother to supervise me, there would have been a very good chance that with my ability to get into mischief, some more serious events would soon have occurred.

Most of the other children that were in the flat I was placed in had been there for most of their lives. I could not fit in. Having seven years of freedom, I found it difficult to conform to all the rules and the way our lives were regulated. The adults could not understand why I always appeared to be causing problems both in the Home and at school.