TASHY DID - A LIFE
Hey kids, grand-kids, and any other nosey people who are reading these pages, this is for you to read now or sometime in the future. It may tell you a little
about how life was 60 or so years ago and rather more about me. Why am I doing it?
In the years after my father's death, way back in 1981, I kept thinking of things I wished I'd talked to him about. After my mother's death, just over
thirteen years later, there was less of a knowledge-vacuum because mother talked more about her past.
Just recently, my daughter and I unearthed my mother's diaries which went back to 1929, when she was just 13 years old. This reminded me of the 1998
incident with my 6 year old and I decided to put down here the story of my life so my children and grandchildren could, if they wished, read about what I had done. I would use my
memory and those diaries to build a picture from 1949 to the present day and add some personal observations.
So, here we go. Each week we will have a new year with preceding weeks being archived. In the first few years, as I will have less to say, probably, I will
add some info about your grandparents and their parents.
1975
It is possible we did things in the wrong order but, after we knew my wife was pregnant, we decided we needed a bigger house. We found one a few miles down
the road in Wivenhoe and in January, with a six-week bundle of joy, moved in. In Alresford we had never really got to know anyone; commuting meant we were seldom
there in the week and my cricket and then rallying meant we weren’t there much at weekends either. But in Wivenhoe it was different and, over the next 10 years
that we lived there, we became quite a big part of the community, but more of that later. The house was officially three bedroomed but the previous owners had
divided the largest room, which ran all the way down one side of the house, into two rooms, so there were three bedrooms now upstairs and the original third
bedroom, which was downstairs, became our dining room. Today it seems to be worth about £200,000.
I have to say this may be the shortest of my entries because to be honest everything that happened that year seems to have been normal. I still hated being
alone but I didn’t really have to be. My wife’s best friends had moved down to Wivenhoe too and the wife commuted each day. I had made other friends on the train,
I still had my rock at work and all was good.
I was enjoying being a parent. My wife started, in September of this year, to help out at the local playgroup, something she did for much of the next nine
years. She actually ran the place for years and, when she stopped that, remained as chairman, or chairperson, until we left Wivenhoe in June 1985. I had retired
from rallying but regressed a few years and set up my old Scalextric set in the enormous garage we had and this became my hobby. We spent time at the beach in
summer and the coziness of my own home in winter. My relationship existed but was not the perfect one I had always wanted.
It is possible we did things in the wrong order but, after we knew my wife was pregnant, we decided we needed a bigger house. We found one a few miles down
the road in Wivenhoe and in January, with a six-week bundle of joy, moved in. In Alresford we had never really got to know anyone; commuting meant we were seldom
there in the week and my cricket and then rallying meant we weren’t there much at weekends either. But in Wivenhoe it was different and, over the next 10 years
that we lived there, we became quite a big part of the community, but more of that later. The house was officially three bedroomed but the previous owners had
divided the largest room, which ran all the way down one side of the house, into two rooms, so there were three bedrooms now upstairs and the original third
bedroom, which was downstairs, became our dining room. Today it seems to be worth about £200,000.
I have to say this may be the shortest of my entries because to be honest everything that happened that year seems to have been normal. I still hated being
alone but I didn’t really have to be. My wife’s best friends had moved down to Wivenhoe too and the wife commuted each day. I had made other friends on the train,
I still had my rock at work and all was good.
I was enjoying being a parent. My wife started, in September of this year, to help out at the local playgroup, something she did for much of the next nine
years. She actually ran the place for years and, when she stopped that, remained as chairman, or chairperson, until we left Wivenhoe in June 1985. I had retired
from rallying but regressed a few years and set up my old Scalextric set in the enormous garage we had and this became my hobby. We spent time at the beach in
summer and the coziness of my own home in winter. My relationship existed but was not the perfect one I had always wanted.
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