Before I was Me

My story begins long before I was born. My mother’s grandfather ran away from his Jewish family in Riga, Poland, and after a series of adventures arrived penniless in London, then converted to Christianity. That side of the family lived in Ilford. My father lost his mother at a very early age, and was brought up by his Aunt and Uncle in East Ham. Both my parents lived through the War years as teenagers, and when my father was eventually called up he became a “Bevan Boy” and mined coal in Lancashire. After the war he went to what was then Persia to earn enough to marry my mother and set up home in Sutton. They and their families were part of a very devout and true Christian group who kept themselves apart from the outside world, and that was the environment I arrived into on 28th October, 1957. The Silver Cross pram shows they wanted the very best for me. The funny thing was, they did not listen to the radio so we had no idea of the other significant event going on - the birth of the Today Programme.