My Early Childhood

Most of the photos here are from 1955. I was a five year old boy living in Greatham in 1955 with my dad, who was the local 'Bobby', my mam and my younger brother.  We lived at 3 Egerton Terrace which was a terraced house with an outside loo and we had a bath in a tub in the kitchen. Cerebos Salt was down the road. I remember friends at that time were Johnny Tully and Gerald Harper. I started school at the local primary in 1955 but was shuffled off to a bigger school in Billingham shortly afterwards, perhaps because I showed a spark of brightness. Anyway, there I was, a six years old, catching a bus [the number 24A I seem to recall] to Billingham and back every school day, completely unaccompanied.  Can you imagine doing that today!
I think life was much more placid and unworried in those days.  We did not have much by today's standards but we were intensely carefree and happy. I had nothing but fond memories of Greatham and so, some thirty years later, when I was visiting Newcastle on business I decided to go back to the village.   I stopped outside the house I remembered to be my old home, musing, when a lady popped her head out from the door opposite.  I reassured her I was not snooping and told her the story of our family and she declared 'Oh! The young Policemen!'. My dad is 87 next week and alive and kicking and living in Saltdean, Sussex!!  Happy days!

Philip Purdie, Haywards Heath, West Sussex.