Here is a selection of some of the images from my early childhood that have somehow miraculously survived the journey through the chaos of my life.
The photo above on the left was taken when I was one year old with my mum, who is about twenty-one at the time. Check out the groovy apron, which was mandatory back in the 1950s. The photo on the right looks like it was taken around the same time, me with my Nan outside her house in Dumpton Park in Kent. I used to love going to see her as she lived not far from Ramsgate which meant we were going to spend the day at the beach.
Here I am on the left at about a year later with my auntie Brenda, my mum’s sister. We’re on a narrow-gauge railway that ran between Ramsgate and Dumpton Park. In between the stations the train travelled through a very long tunnel, the darkness lit occasionally with second-hand illuminations bought from Blackpool. It’s just recently been reopened – Covid restrictions permitting of course – and is well worth a gander if you happen to be in the area. In the photo on the right I think I may be wearing the very shoes that let me down the day I tried to escape the jaws of a killer tortoise. And if that doesn’t intrigue you enough to make you rush out and buy the book then I don’t know what will.
The image above shows me at the age of three, forced to model a cardigan and a nifty pair of shoes for a toddlers clothing catalogue.
I never saw a penny.
Finally, the poster from a film I saw when I was very young, the earliest memory I have of going to the cinema with my parents. As I mention in the book I thought that’s where the kids actually lived and I wanted to stay in the cinema with them. In some ways I’m not sure I ever left the place, certainly not mentally anyway.
Steve Mayhew 