All Countryside

When I was born, Basildon was not built. I was born in Pitsea, when it was all country side. Although my mum took me back to London after the war, I returned to Pitsea often to stay with my grandparents. It was the happiest time of my life, the freedom of walking across the fields and buying fresh eggs and getting the old noisy bus to Pitsea market on a Wednesday. We got the water from the well outside the back door, no flush lavvy, no electric light, just oil lamps. But I was far happier than the kids nowadays.