I was born on the 28th June, on the Isle of Wight, sometime I am told in the middle of an air raid, however when I asked my mother and father some years later, the actual time, they both told me they couldn't remember, the air raid was over Portsmouth, and both of them were trying hard to protect each other and me. It would seem that I was born feet first, and as my mother would say, I have been on my feet ever since, As a young boy, I was the explorer, We moved to Portland, my father buying the house belonging to my grandfather, he was my favourite granddad, and I always called him Pop, he had his own business, he was a painter and decorator and worked alongside his only son, Jolliffe and son. As a schoolboy on Portland, I would find out where they were working, and after school would head for the house, and help bring the ladders and paint pots back to the workshop. They didn't have a van, just a pair of old trucks that had to be pushed to and from the house being worked on, they had a good routine though if the weather was dry, work on the outside, if wet, then work on the inside, usually paper hanging or painting skirting boards.
As I grew up, we tended to move about, with my father being in the Royal Navy but a chief writer, it was mainly shore establishments, I do remember him going away for a long time, and as he held me in his arms he said. "You are the head of the household now, look after your mummy and brother." I never saw my father again for three years, he had been posted to Japan something to do with a war in Korea. I do remember mother sitting us down on the sofa and reading his letters to us, she would also show us a picture of him, the idea being we should never forget what daddy looked like. Then one day both my brother and I were dressed in our best clothes and taken to Weymouth railway station, my daddy was coming home, what happened next is something that has always stayed in my memory, I knew what my daddy looked like, we had pictures all over the house, but then this man gets off the train and my mummy holds out her arms to him and they are kissing on the platform, and not like mummy kisses me when going to bed, but this man with this hair all over his face is actually putting his mouth to hers. I told mummy to stop, but she looked down at me saying this is your daddy. I didn't believe a word of it and refused to have anything to do with this person. It was only, the following morning sat at the breakfast table that I was able to grasp what had happened, both my mother and father walked into the dining room together, the beard had gone and the man I knew, was stood with his wife. They both took me to school that morning, and as I waved goodbye at the school gate I was happy, the responsibility of looking after my mother and brother was now in the hands of my father again.
We lived on Portland for a few years, then my father was moved to Admiralty House in London, we all moved to a flat in Connal Crescent between Park Royal tube station and Hanger lane tube station, a lovely area, we had shops, a cinema and places to play. I went to the local school Twyford Abbey and had my first girlfriend, we were both ten, she was lovely, and during playtime, her favourite thing was to do handstand up against the wall of the toilet block, I would stand and watch, as she kicked her legs up, then as her legs touched the wall, her skirt would drop over her back and she would be showing her blue pant to anyone who wanted to see them, but what the heck, we were ten, and for me, anything sexual was eight years down the line, though, we did have our first kiss, we both lived in the same street, she lived a little further up the road, and as we got to my front door June put her arms around my neck and kissed me on the mouth, then ran all the way home, with me watching her go.
On Saturday mornings, we would go to the local cinema, it was the children's club, if it was your birthday, you were sent a free ticket as a present, plus you were allowed a free drink on a stick. We would watch cartoons a sort of serial, Batman and Robin, Superman or Super woman, all ended in a cliff hanger, meaning you had to come back next week to see if everything turned out alright, it usually did, so as we watched, we waited for the next problem. Then it was the main feature, The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, or Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger, and as we all left the cinema and headed home, we were those heroes, and for a shore time life was a beautiful fantasy.
I failed my eleven plus, but as I hated lessons anyway, both my father and mother realised that I would amount to nothing in life, I ended up going to Stanhope S/M a bus ride away from home, and like I say, I hated school, the only thing I did enjoy, was music, history and geography, the rest, no interest at all, so at that school, I would sit and let those subjects that didn't interest me slide over my head.
Then, in December of 1956, we as a family found ourselves on this 30 seater aircraft of Eagle Airways flight bound for Malta, and as I said in the book, the flight out as far as Nice, was horrible, but after that it was great, and once in Malta, life for me took on a whole new meaning. Yes we did have a teacher that was the pits as far as I was concerned, and yes he did use my head to make me understand I was wrong when it came to maths, but like in the book that all ended when I finally stood up to him, but we also had a teacher who taught us English, and everything I have said about her is true, she taught me so much, and I loved her for that, in fact, she was the one who changed my life about school and I ended up loving it. As I say, I do love history, and when I started to look into the history of Malta, I was fascinated, it seemed to me, that you could take the world's history and place the whole lot on this little Island and you had a world in miniature, what Malta has gone through over not just years, but centuries is fascinating, this little Island has been invaded and conquered so many times it is unbelievable, the Romans. and Turks, even the French were using the Island in the Napoleonic times, then the British were asked to take on the Island and it did, they invested millions of pounds in Malta, building a road system that is still there to this day, three airports and turning Valletta harbour into a safe area for its warships. The only thing going against the British in Malta, and this is purely a personal view, was the church of Rome, who seemed to rule Malta with an iron fist, and I hated that, this idea of doing pennants because after confession the local priest had that power to make you do something that was inappropriate, to me seemed barbaric, the problem though in the 50s was that the church had a stranglehold on the people and they accepted it as Gods rules, though to be honest there is nowhere in the bible that says you cannot wear shoes for two weeks, or a boy cannot kiss his girlfriend, I agree, that kissing can lead to other things, but in Malta, in the 50s kissing was looked on as almost sexual intercourse. The last time Maureen and I went to Malta, we didn't see any priests around in there garb, apart from in church, and Nuns were in short supply as well, what we did see, was a lot of the younger generation in miniskirts holding hands with there boyfriends heading for the disco area out for a night of enjoyment, It would seem, that the young people of Malta had decided that they were not going to permit the church to rule there lives, and the church had, I am happy to say had listened.
Apart from the church rulings, for us Brits, Malta was our island in the sun, we worked hard, and played even harder, My father played rugby, for one of the teams on Manoel Island, and we as a family would watch the game from the sideline, the pitch was not grass, it was a sort of fine white gravel, Father had the ball, he was running for the touchline, then he did the one thing you never do on a gravel pitch, with the ball in his hands, he threw himself onto the ground and slid the last few yards on his belly. Yes he did score, but he had to sit on in the dugout for the rest of the game, while the medics sorted out the skin loss on his arms legs and stomach, and my father was a very hairy man, but on that afternoon, he was as bald as an egg, for a few weeks anyway. As for the canoe, my brother and I took int out every weekend in the summer and as we worked a routine at school whereby you had the afternoons off in the summer months, Kelvin would spend his days fishing down by the old boathouse, and I would take the canoe out on my own.
Most of the girls at school were not interested in us schoolboys, I think they were more interested in the soldier's sailors and airmen on the Island, and as Maltese girls, were so out of reach to us, guys, we just accepted the situation, David Faulkner and I would meet up at the weekends and in our best outfits go into Valletta and do the walk down the main street, but it was a case of look, but don't touch, then we would go back to his home in Mosta where his mum would provide tea, and we would talk until it was time for me to head for home. So like I say, life in Malta was good, in fact, it was very good, It was only two years, I wish it could have been longer, but, I was growing up, I wanted to join the Royal Navy and see the world on a warship. So on the first week in December in 1959, the Palmer family flew back to England, back to their home on Portland, and my father joined H.M.S. Osprey.
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