One of the nicest people we have spoken to yet. We are so grateful that he shared his stories with us. With thanks to Stockland.
I was born in the cellar of our house in Cardiff in 1940 because there was an air raid siren on at the time. I remember, after the war, having a wonderful time playing on bomb sites in the streets.
My dad was the clerk to the Mayor of Cardiff. The Mayor would come round often for meetings. At that time I used to sleep walk. Apparently once when they were having a meeting in our lounge I just walked in, walked around and left again while sleeping. The Mayor just watched.
At school I was the laziest thing on two legs and a bitter disappointment to my father, who had ambitions for me to become an architect. I left school and got an apprenticeship in sign writing. I got quite good at it and did a lot of sign writing for the Commonwealth Games, for example, in the late 1950s.
I learnt ballroom dancing at that time. My mum had taught me some in the lounge room at home when I was younger. I had a partner and we used to enter competitions. We won a few, and had some good times. My favourite dances were the quick step, fox trot and the waltz. We drifted apart eventually but at the time she was brilliant. It came naturally to her, I could throw her all over the place.
There was a huge great winter in 1962-63. The streets were lined with five or six feet of snow and there was no work in the building industry whatsoever. I, like everyone else, got laid off. By that time I’d married and had my first child. I decided to think about emigrating. A friend, who was raised in Cottesloe, agreed to sponsor us. We got it all arranged and came over in May 1965.
Coming here was a disaster at first. We were supposed to be staying with our sponsor but his wife told us ‘F off, I hate Poms’. My ex never recovered from that and eventually we divorced. I met my wife at a meeting about a new school in the Whitfords area. We were both very involved with our kids. We formed a friendship, then we realised that there was a lot that we respected each other for. We got married in 1977 and have been together ever since.