Part 1 (1956-1966) - From Bogner to London – Hyde Park - 1965- 1966

From Bogner to London

Hyde Park - Albion Gate

After our rather strange round trip to Birmingham everything seemed to settle down into a normal Bognor routine – School, Beach, Play. My Father returned home from London for weekends, and I gathered that he was in a more secure employment situation.

Coco the dog was still there – what had happened to him during the Birmingham episode I have no idea – but he was still there. And so where the friends I had 9 months previously. I would like to say that a sense of calm and normality returned (or indeed arrived for the 1^st time). But this was not to be, as I quickly realised that new plans were afoot. My father had a job as a “Head Porter” in a very posh apartment block on the Bayswater Road on the north side of Hyde Park. Plans were made – and before I knew it we were on another Train. 

I Was 9 Years Old....

A Grand Place – so posh – a flat in a huge millionaires apartment mansion - Albion Gate on the Bayswater Road.

AlbionGate - The Bayswater Road, London

And a basement flat with windows that opened to a narrow court yard with steps up to the ornate iron railings and a gate that opened to the pavement. But it was Palatial to me. My own bedroom, and a bath that you could fill to the top with hot steaming water; I discover for the first time the joy of the ‘long hot soak’. The flats front door opened into the basement of the grand building, store rooms and boilers, and a stairwell that led up to the grand carpeted entrance with its Porters Office.  

My Father and Mother and Sister - a sense of stability. 

The memories flow like water now.  The Rotten Row on the edge of Hyde Park, playing with Sue in great piles of autumn leafs, brown, crisp and fragrant. 

Going to a new Junior School, walking home down Mount Street, passing the Police Box (a veritable Tardis) at the junction of Park Lane, and then across the Park and seeing my mother walking toward me in the distance – arms out and smiling. 

Playing with my Meccano set, and extravagant Xmas gift from one of the Mansions residents. Sitting of the plush carpets by the caged lift shaft, watching the lift going up and down, transporting its wealthy occupants.

And there was a windowless store room in the basement, where curiously there were stacks of National Geographic Magazines. I sat for hours, poring over their glossy fading pages – stories and images from around the world. People and cultures in bewildering variety, images that burned into my young mind. I sat there in that jumbled untidy store room, a single bare electric bulb, and I journeyed the world, captivated by great piles of dusty magazines. A world without end, so many places, so many people, so many mysteries.

And I wondered what the world held for me. It was 1964 - the youth revolution, feminism, and racial equality were about to happen. The 1960s, a time of change, of challenging outdated values, of liberation, Hippies, and Music that would change the world. 

I was 10 Years Old.