Chapter 1

I was born a few days into the second half of the twentieth century, the second son of a working class family. That January the weather in our small industrial city was, as usual, foul; not that I knew or cared about my countrymen's apparent favourite topic of conversation. Neither did my parents after nine years of trying for a second child.

The first six years of my life were perfectly normal, at least compared to my peers. Like everyone on our little estate, financially we had little but in many other ways we were well off. When I was just three months old we moved into a brand new council house, one of many thousands being built in post war England. {An Estate is a group of houses, usually all built at the same time, that may be considered a small community in its own right. Council Estates are those built by the Local Council (Local Municipality) for rental only. They attracted the lower paid workers } It came with plenty of room and a large garden, the latter became my personal playground as I grew. I didn't know at the time but I was lucky to be in a happy and loving family.

Both of my parents were intelligent, if lacking in any formal education and more important at the time, both were grafters. {A 'Grafter' is a hard worker, usually manual, the opposite is a 'Skiver' who is someone who evades work. } Dad had spent the entire war in the army, enlisting as soon as war rumours emerged. Even though shrapnel in his knee severely and painfully limited his movements, that he counted himself lucky shows what his generation endured. Like most men of his class and age, my father loved a pint of bitter and a few hours spent in the local pub with his friends. Not so usual was the fact that he only went when the family could afford it, which was not very often. Like many things about my parents, I only really appreciated their sacrifices when I was considerably older.

Life for me changed in the late summer of my sixth year. I contracted what was then a killer disease, polio. I was to spend the rest of that year plus the first quarter of the next in hospital. I found out later that the doctors had given my survival only a fifty-fifty chance but had told my parents that I would almost certainly spend the rest of my life in an iron lung should I cheat the grim reaper. Unsurprisingly my mother's lovely dark hair had turned completely grey by the time I left hospital. Like any six or seven year-old I was totally self-centred and didn't realise the full effects of my illness on those around me until a few years later.

After confounding the experts with my full recover I had a taste of what had happened to my family when I finally arrived home. Feeling much better I naively assumed that everything would just continue as it had before I was taken ill. What I couldn't know about was the fear that accompanied this disease. None of my former friends were allowed to play with me, in fact their parents would often cross the road rather than walk past our house if I was outside. My family had been completely ostracised by virtually all of our estate. Even the couple of kindly neighbours that had tried to help were often cold-shouldered by others.