CONTENTS:

Introduction | In the Beginning... | Fleetwood | Cleethorpes | Wilson Street Days  
Elliston Street Secondary Modern School | A Pop Career? | Marjorie Elizabeth Robinson | Our First House

Fleetwood

My father, as a single parent with 2 young sons, decided (reluctantly I know) to send me to live with my grandmother who lived in Fleetwood, Lancashire where I lived happily until the age of 11. At Fleetwood I was looked after by my Grandma, Beatrice Mary Green, my Granddad, Arthur Ernest and their unmarried daughter, Doris, who became my surrogate Mother. We lived at 26 Ash Street just a couple of hundred yards from the Fleetwood to Blackpool tram tracks which ran along Poulton Road (still do!). There were lots of uncles and aunts in the Green 'dynasty', Arthur and Mollie Green, Herbert and Mary Green, Leonard and Corah Jinks, and Tom and Almeda Fairclough.

Me, Auntie Doris and my eldest son, Richard, at 26 Ash Street Fleetwood mid-70s

My years at Fleetwood were very happy and my dad visited us as often as he could. Speaking many years later  to my Auntie Pam (at my stepmum Brenda's funeral on 5 October 2007) she told me that my Dad really wanted to bring me back to Cleethorpes but Grandma, Grandad and Auntie Doris couldn't bear to part with me. I suppose I was a living link to their youngest daughter and sister who they'd lost. I don't have any thoughts that my Dad didn't love me - it was just how life was from my earliest memories.

 I went to Blackiston Infants School and Chaucer Road Boys School and seemed to spend the rest of my time on the beach or at the Fleetwood open-air swimming pool interspersed with tram trips to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. My cousins, Geoffrey and Marilyn Green, Joan Fairclough and Jackie Parker were my best friends. We had no TV at Ash Street and evenings were spent listening to the radio - the Al Read Show and Journey into Space spring to mind. Ironically, Auntie Doris worked at an electronics company, "Mullards" (later taken over by Philips) which made glass valves for radio and TV equipment. She had worked for ICI during the War manufacturing ammunitions and it seemed, from her many tales, that she spent the rest of her war-time years, when not making bombs, having a good time with her mates mainly chasing American GI's!

Granddad Green was born in Hull, Yorkshire, apparently into a wealthy ship owning family (tugs, I think). He ran away to sea when very young and the family disowned him (odd really for a seafaring family but still that's life!). Auntie Doris remembered her childhood in Hull and could recall the R101 Airship coming over the city and she told me that one of her friends had been Amy Johnston, the famous aviatrix. I'm not sure when Granddad moved his family to Fleetwood, but it was certainly before the Second World War. He fished out of Fleetwood for many years as a trawler skipper and after he had retired from the sea he worked on-shore as a ships painter. I can remember going onto Fleetwood docks with him as a small child and sitting in a shed full of paint tins and old men smoking hand-rolled cigarettes!

Regretfully I never really got the chance to talk to my Granddad when I'd grown up and learn about his life. Grandma had a bad heart and diabetes and always seemed poorly in her latter years. When she was younger she used to take me to 'Beetle Drives' with her cronies. Auntie Doris loved the movies and often used to take me to the "Victoria Cinema" in Poulton Road and the "Regent" in Lord Street. I was in the "Roy Rogers" Saturday morning club at the Regent - cool eh? In those pre-video and TV days I loved going to the cinema and developed into quite a fan of the old Hollywood movies and the Saturday morning diet of westerns,  Zorro and other action films.

Of the uncles, Arthur was a captain of coasters for ICI running raw materials for the chemical works at Burnaze, Herbert had suffered a serious leg injury while on the Atlantic convoys during WWII and worked for ICI as a rigger (he once had seaside-rock factory too), Len was a trawler skipper, Tom bought a newsagents business in Preston. Sadly, I think all my uncles and aunties in Fleetwood are no longer alive.

Arthur and Mollie had a daughter, Marilyn; Herbert and Mary had Maureen and Geoffrey; Len and Corah had Arthur ('Bunty'), Len and a daughter whose name I forget; Tom and Almeda had Ellen and Joan.  

Marilyn married Brian Williams later in life and lives in Fleetwood. Geoffrey lives in Manchester and works in design I think. Ellen lives in Surrey with her husband Tom Barnes and Joan is in America (this was updated on 21/12/00 thanks to my cousin Marilyn). Joan's married name is Zylkin and she is an ardent painter.