I can remember my step grandad taking me into the Beehive Pub in Tottenham when I was 15.(I was very tall!) and telling every person in there that I was his grandson. I wasn't, of course,but that has never left me!
Those were the days! We didn't have an Anderson so when the sirens wailed we shot into a cupboard under the stairs, our cat being the first one in there. My Mum, being Welsh took me 'down home' to her family thinking we'd be safer but first the oil refineries got bombed then Swansea docks were hit and a plane even flew down Swansea High Street machine gunning all & sundry. So we came home! The only part I vaguely remember is in the cupboard with the cat...
Same thing happened to my maternal grandparents: my grandfather was back on leave so took my grandmother out for a night on the village...on the same night the Luftwaffe decided to pay their first of many visits
'Ere! Let me tell you a story (Max Bygraves.) I'd married an American sailor (lady!!!).I'm38. I have to go the American Consulate because to show my short and long birth certificate. I only had one.So...they arrange for me to go to Somerset House for the other. Ok! I walk into a room by appointment. Sitting on a corner of his desk is a man who tells me to come in and sit down.He looks at me,then asks me "what would you do if I told you your dad wasn't your father?" I looked at him and replied "As long as my mum is my mum,I wouldn't care!" "Good" he says." Your dad is not your father!" I finally leave with my papers and "stagger " down the road and phoned my lady to tell her the news! Well,I never said anything to mum to the day she passed.I thought if she didn't want me to know I wouldn't worry her. Funny thing,I always suspected something because my stepdad was never very friendly to me. I did have a sister from their marriage. She asked me one day..."did dad ever hit you?" I told her "yes,quite a lot!" "Well" she said "he never hit me!" Funny thing to say,I thought. Funnier thing yet......one country I never,ever,wanted to go to.....USA! I'm assuming after all these years that my real dad was a casualty of WW2...…...
