I was having lunch with my cousin sometime in the second half of 2011. She commented that I was one of the few constants in her life outside her immediate family. That set me thinking about how much we knew each other. It struck me that the years I spent abroad with my mother and father were lost periods in our childhood. My part of the family disappeared for a few years and then reappeared.
When I wrote this I was late 56 with 57 just over a month away. I was trying to remember events from nearly 50 years ago. Some are still vivid, others are dim and some I am sure are real memories but I can’t be too sure. I hope none of them has been subliminally grafted on to my desire to remember from somebody’s website.
Any errors I may have made have been done in good faith. Sadly, my mother has been dead some years and since my father remarried contact with him has been fractured, two letters or so, seeing him and barely talking with him at his elder half sister’s eightieth birthday party (now more than 15 years ago), seeing him and barely talking with him at my mother’s elder sister’s funeral. My brother wasn’t born until we stopped our travels so I have nobody alive to help me verify anything.
My baby brother (he’s 10 years younger than me but I can’t believe or accept he is as old as he is) told me some years ago he thinks my father disposed of all the slides he took. Some would have been from Singapore and Hong Kong but mostly from our time in Aden. So I have very little to provide as extra visual material. I have only a roll of film (which I have already posted in this blog, an album of significant childhood photos, certificates and some odds and ends that somehow came into my possession.
Despite all that, what will follow in this blog is a collection of random memories and images.
© 2012 Gwailo54
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