Grampa Hugh Wight was always smiling. I have a photo of him as a goalkeeper with his local amateur team, in the ubiquitous jersey and cap. My grandparents lived in King’s Park, Glasgow, less than a mile from Hampden Park, where cup finals and international fixtures were held. At one time it was the biggest…
In 1961, at the age of six, I entered the English school system for the first time. No-one in our family had ever lived in England before. I had a generally happy time at Overchurch, a popular and progressive state primary around the corner from our house in Upton. My new classmates said I talked…
It was Valencia, July 1972 and blazing hot: my first time in Spain (it now seems odd that I had already sat my Spanish A Level). I was on a three-week language course organised by Liverpool Poly, as it then was, and there were school students from all across the UK. One was at Eton,…
Thursday afternoons at Birkenhead School were for playing soldiers. Everyone was more or less obliged to join the Combined Cadet Force. We were fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, to have a genuine, high-ranking ex-soldier as our CO: Lt. Col. Arthur N. Green (AKA "The Ang"). Dad’s Army was one of the most popular programmes at the…
Thor's Stone is known to everyone who lives, or has lived, on the Wirral. The outcrop known as Thor's Stone It is a big chunk of sandstone on Thurstaston Common, from where there are superb views of the Dee and across the Mersey. You are aware that you are standing on a peninsula: in one…
