CONTENTS:

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

Cleethorpes

When I was 11 years old I decided I wanted to be re-united with my Dad and brother and arrangements were made for me to move to Cleethorpes. It was less of a wrench to me than to my Auntie Doris, Grandma and Granddad and perhaps if I'd been older it would have had more effect. I realised later in life that my leaving had been a great sadness to the Greens but I was young and looking forward to a new life. As grew older I often had pangs of heartache over my decision to leave. Several years later, after my Grandma and Granddad Green had both died, Doris met and married George Peek, a lovely chap, and they had several happy years together before George died. Doris lived on for a few more years after she lost George and died in 1988.  

Cleethorpes Pier from Ross Castle

I arrived in Cleethorpes in the summer of 1960 and moved in with my Grandma, Sarah Margaret Davidson at 15 Wilson Street. Grandma had been widowed during the Second World War when my Granddad was torpedoed by a German U-Boat in the Irish Sea while skipper of a trawler, the "King Eric" (a 227 ton vessel built by Cochcrane and Cooper at Selby in 1899). We didn't find out what happened to his trawler until the 70s when an ex-U boat captain published his memoirs and listed the sinking of a 500 ton 'armed patrol craft' which historians have concluded must have been the "King Eric". Oberleutnant Philip Schuler, the captain of U-141, sank the trawler on 5 September 1941 after it had sailed from Tobermory on Mull..

Strangely, a Spiritualist had once said to Grandma that her husband was "under the water" - perhaps not a bad guess in that many fishermen had lost their lives while sailing from Grimsby in both war and peacetime! My great-granddad, 'Faro' Chris Davidsen, had come to Grimsby in the days of sailing ships from his native Faro Islands and settled. I don't know when our surname changed to Davidson. Grandma Davidson had a large family. Her children were, in order of age - youngest first - David, Pat and Pam (twin girls), Peter, Eunice, Vivian, Harold, Edith, Frank (my dad), and Chris.

Harold had died before I came to Cleethorpes, Pat and her husband, Karl, had just returned to Cleethorpes after living in Boston, USA for 10 years. Karl worked in the same factory as the Boston Strangler. Auntie Vivian had married a Danish hotelier, Chris Kesby, who was quite ill in the early 60s with the result that their family was split up for a while, with Vivian and Chris living in Copenhagen and their 3 children living in Cleethorpes. They are now in Australia.

Edith married a chap called Bunny and later re-married Ernie Day.

Pam had married Don Watson who had a boat and worked as a shipwright for Bridges and Salmon on Grimsby docks. They originally lived in Oliver Street, Cleethorpes, in a terrace house backing onto the railway and the Humber Estuary. He drove speedboats (ex RAF rescue launches) for the trippers at Cleethorpes in his spare time. I loved the clinker built rowing boats and wanted to be a shipwright like Don for a while!

Uncle Chris was a trawler skipper who lived with his wife, Joan, in Craven Road Cleethorpes. Chris was a bit frightening to me, a larger than life man who seemed to spend most of his time battling the seas to bring back fish. He enjoyed a drink when on shore leave. Auntie Edith had been through a difficult divorce but had met a nice chap, Ernie Day, and had settled down again. They lodged with my dad for a while at Hawthorne Avenue, before getting a Council house in Worseley Road, Immingham (where I eventually settled - but that's coming up later). I remember cycling along the sea wall from Grimsby to Immingham with a school friend, Paul Aldred, to see Auntie Edith. On the way we used to stop off at an old World War II radar tower to play. It was a very tall structure with hexagonal brick walls at ground level and another hexagonal brick enclosure supported on steel-work. The building had openings in the upper floors with drops to lower levels which frightened the life out of me as I was scared of heights. I had to steel myself to climb up to the upper floors!

Harold's widow, Brenda had 2 children Craig and Diane who are a bit younger than me. Craig became a joiner and Diane worked in Marks and Spencer's shop in Grimsby.

Eunice married Barry Mumbycroft, a manager in the frozen food industry, and they settled at Queen Mary Avenue in Cleethorpes and raised 3 children, Spencer, Tina and Rachael. They separated but continued to see each other as friends until Barry's death in early 2008.. David was 'courting' Gwen Pixton when I arrived in Cleethorpes and they were both in Jimmy Stephenson's ballroom dancing team. After a long courtship they married and lived for a while in a bungalow that David built in Green Lane, Healing. Later he built a house in Station Road, Healing, where they brought up their daughter, Hayley, and several King Charles spaniels. I see Dave regularly at North East Lincolnshire Target Club where he brings his grandson Elliott to shoot.