My grandparents set great store by education and all the children stayed on at school past the minimum leaving age of 14. Dad left school at 16 having taken the school certificate and was successful in obtaining a clerical post.

I haven't a huge amount of detail about dads early career, but I know he worked in the rag trade, then for NCR. At the point he met and married my mother he was working for British Gaumont in their Soho offices, where, on the floor above, John Logie Baird was busy inventing Television.

Cycle-Skating - The New Sport of 1923. The precursor to rolling blading. Men in Paris enjoy this new sport.

I don't think Dad ever tried cycle skating but couldn't resist including this curiosity here.

However, as a young man about town Dad went to see a show every Saturday night until the fateful day when he and his friends realised they had seen everything they considered worth seeing in the whole of the West End.

Holidays were taken in a large gang at Sandown on the Isle of Wight and it was these trips that seeded the idea of a permanent move there. In the meantime Dad was spending a fair amount of his leisure time playing tennis and had joined the local tennis club in Dulwich Park. It was here that he met my mother.

As I get older I am more drawn to the idea of recording my past, in particular my early childhood. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly it would be so easy to put it off until it's too late, although it is a cliche the years really do fly past faster and faster. Secondly I think it would be interesting for my son, who sadly never met his grandmother and can only just remember his grandfather, to learn a little more about them. Thirdly to give him and any one else who may be interested a flavour of what life was like growing up on the Isle of Wight in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Writing this now, rather than a few years ago, enables me to add video and sound clips to enhance my story in a way that I hope you will find interesting.

Henry Hall & His Orchestra - The Teddy Bear's Picnic (1932) presentation by R 3 T Я 8 T 8 R for the promotion and conservation of the arts and the general preservation of popcultural inheritance - not for commercial use -

Before we get to me, however, it's worth exploring how my family got to be on the Island in the first place. ..

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