One fine day in 1938 a small boy was placed in his push chair, a wood and canvas affair with six inch wire spoked and  hard rubber tyred wheels. He was pushed down a long road with iron railings along its length and it was probably the incidence of the railings, perhaps with light flashing through them or maybe their repetitive shadows which caused the incident to be remembered. He carried with him his favourite toy: a brightly painted wooden "monkey on a stick" By pulling on a cord, or perhaps a lever, he was able to make the monkey climb the stick. David, for that was his name,liked opereating that toy for he was in control and could decide when the monkey would climb and when descend. At the time all other decisions were made for him and thus were outside of his control.

David was an only child, a quiet boy, with a fine head of  tight curls which were much admired by all and were the envy of all the other mums in the neighbourhood, so perhaps he was a little spoilt. But I digress.

That outing beside the railings  is David's earliest  memory of the big wide world outside of his home. Later, as he grew older he was to recognise the scene as Rancliffe Road  and to realise that the railings enclosed Central Park,. East Ham: a town on the fringe of London's East - end.

Some half a century  after that event, when sitting quietly with his aged father, he recounted that memory, and learned the purpose of his journey.     

                 " that would have been with your real mother" he said, continuing,  " She used to walk from the house in Geoffrey Gardens to meet me off the bus at The White Horse and we would then walk home together. Your stepmother never did that."

So that memory recalls a day when David was just two years old, for he was at that tender age when his mother died.