This page contains links to family photographs dating from the late 1950s to my leaving England for the Far East in Summer 1971.
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A passport picture of my mother, taken in 1962. |
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Every year at
my secondary school the
entire school, masters and boys, sat for a school photograph. This (click on the cropped version at left here) is the result from 1961. I am the
beetle-browed fellow about a quarter of the way from the left-hand edge of the picture, fourth rank down from the top among the heads. A fellow alumnus sent me the picture, asking me to supply more names for the masters. I recognized the Art master Archie Gomman at 44, "Nellie" Dean at 59, "Pug" Richmond at 60, and Mr Murnane (of whom I can recall neither the forename nor any distinguishing nickname) at 24. Number 20 taught us English and took us on a hiking trip to the Welsh mountains; I think his name was Whysall. Number 42 taught us physics and died about the time I left the school in 1963, from the lingering after-effects of having been gassed in WW1. I'm annoyed at not being able to locate Mr Heathcote. He never taught me in class, but he'd been a naval officer and ran the naval section of the school cadet force. (His signature is on my Certificate of Seamanship). Also Thomas "Toss" (from the way he signed his name, "Thos.") Lees, who taught us history and wrote a history of the school. Also "Jock" Scofield(?), a fine math teacher from whom I learned basic Calculus … |
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Me, taken in a photo booth, in Summer (looks like) 1961 (I'm guessing). |
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How many famous people have you seen in the flesh? My lifetime total is probably a tick or two higher than average just by virtue
of having lived in and around London and New York City for so long. Even as a teen in backwoods Northampton, though, there were some brushes with greatness. When Ella Fitzgerald performed in nearby Leicester, one of the masters at Northampton School for Boys organized a trip. No photographs of me at the event survive, but here's the poster for it. The date is February 28th, 1962. |
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This one I can definitely date. It's a passport picture, August 1962. |
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In Summer 1963 I went on a trip to Austria sponsored by the Anglo-Austrian society. This is at Alt Aussee, in the Austrian Alps. |
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Uncle Jack (Knowles) and Auntie Gwen at the wedding of their daughter Vicky. |
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F. Knowles is obviously a relative, and this looks like the 1960s, but I have no clue why it is among my papers. |
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Oh dear. This is me in hippie style, sometime in the mid-1960s. |
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That's Muswell Hill center, in north London. I was living there in March 1965. The other two fellows were friends from the neighborhood. The one in the middle was named Tony Garnett. The other was a Welshman whose name I have forgotten. We used to go out drinking; then sit up all night; then, in the small hours, go and clamber around the rooftops. I forget why … |
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In the Fall of 1967 I took a job teaching at a boys' school near Liverpool. The school had a CCF (= Combined Cadet Force) contingent. I'd been a member of the CCF in my own schooldays, so they asked me to help out. "We'll have to get you a Commission, though …" Here I am (third from left in front row) passing out from my officer training course at Frimley Park, near Aldershot. It was a very short course — one week, I think — and my subsequent military duties were not arduous: coaxing schoolboys to run up and down mountains, mostly. The commission was perfectly genuine, though. According to official Ministry of Defence records, I served two years with the colours, rank of 2nd Lt., service number 485951, properly gazetted going in and coming out. I believe I am still on some reserve list, should the mother country be in mortal peril — Category Z-99, I should think. A bit of a joke, but I'm still going to say militavi non sine gloria. |
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Taken in Liverpool, 1968 or 1969. |
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The pub in Liverpool's Chinatown where I worked as a bartender, 1968-69. That was the beginning of my China connection: full narrative here. |
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A passport picture dated April 1969. |
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Me, my girlfriend Enid, my friend Alan Van, and Alan's daughter Julie, on a trip to north Wales in 1969. |
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My brother Noel with his two boys (Robert standing, Peter on horseback), dated on the back "7th June 1969." |
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Me and Enid again, in the garden at 62 Friars Avenue. I think this was 1970. |