ME AND MY ADOPTIVE FAMILY
Dad in his RAF uniform.
Sandy, my dear dad during World War Two way before I was adopted. Even though it was wartime, it must have been thrilling to work as a ground engineer on the Lancaster bomber, pictured in the photo. Dad is standing behind the cockpit.
During my childhood, Dad played the lead role in many a musical as a member of Stockton Stage Society. His wonderful voice rang out as he performed songs from The Mikado, Oklahoma and South Pacific to mention but a few. I was his biggest fan! Note the live cat on stage with Dad and his leading lady, Kitty.
Margaret, my mum, on her twenty-first birthday in 1939. She worked throughout the war as a land girl on my grandparents’ farm at Aislaby, near Yarm-on-Tees, North Yorkshire.
‘After being adopted, I became part of a family of upright and honest people …’
A photo taken in 1954 on the steps of ‘Burton’s Cottage’, our family cottage in Staithes, North Yorkshire. Mum is on the right in the back row. Spot the baby with the mohican haircut. That’s me!
What a little porker! That’s northern slang for ‘extremely chubby’. A studio photo of me as a one-year-old.
Mum and I on Stockton High Street in 1958. My first trip out on the bus at four years old wearing metal callipers underneath my trousers.
Another studio photograph of me at six years old. This time as a bridesmaid to Una, one of the lovely ladies who worked in our shop in Yarm-on-Tees.