It all started with the notebooks
The town I grew up in had an open-air market that took place on Thursdays. You could find everything from electrical goods, to denim jeans, to cuts of meat from a butcher working from the back of a truck. On the way into the market there was always a fish and chip van on the right of the entrance. Deep in the heart of the market was a stall that sold anything for 50 pence.
My grandparents lived in the adjacent townand while neither of them drove a car, they often cycled to visit us on market day, and then stayed for lunch at our house. My earliest memories are of my brother attempting to ride my Nan's bicycle up and down the driveway of our house.
During the summer holidays we would beg to be chosen to travel back to our grandparents house with them for the afternoonto be picked up by my Dad when he returned from work. On the rare occasions we were allowed to go, we would invariably end up going for a walk to the local post office stores. Years ago it was common for small villages to have a single store that both operated as a grocers, and as a post office. The shop probably sold all manner of interesting things, but my memory only extends as far as the spiral bound notebooks we would often spend our pocket money on.
In these days of video games, and mobile phones, it seems like another world when we thought we were really quite special if our Nan bought us a spiral bound notepad and a Bic biro at the grocery store.
I would sit at the dinner table in my Nan's house, feet dangling from the chair, and write my name and address on the first page of the notebook. The address would go into immense detailEngland, The World, The Solar System, Space. In later years extra lines would be added”Western Spiral Arm of the Milky Way”, “The Universe”, “Infinity”. I thought I was being tremendously clever.
Strangely, I can't remember anything else about what I wrote in those notebooks. All I remember is the first page of each book, the lavendar smell of my grandparents house, how cold the toilet seat was in the downstairs toilet, and the 1950s pattern on the lino nailed to the shelves in the larder.
Those notebooks have a lot to answer for. If not for them, this blog probably wouldn't be here.