After I’d left my father’s primary school our relationship entered a new phase. We were no longer living in each other’s pockets nearly every minute of nearly every day. Perhaps that is why in the summer of 1970, he decided that it would be a good idea to leave Mum behind and go on a road trip, just the two of us. Mum and Dad in London in 1968 I wrote before about my struggles with car sickness, but, rather embarrassingly, this Welsh boy has never been car sick in England. Th

Sixty-eight. Blimey. Now that I am of an age that my father never reached, I find myself thinking about him a lot and regretting that, as an adult, I never got to know him. When you are a child you don’t consider your parents to be people…they’re just parents aren't they. They’re all right, but you do sometimes wish they were richer, more accomplished or perhaps just a little bit cooler. Could my father not have had a Zodiac convertible rather than a poky little Anglia? In

Things that helped me remember. A Mass of Contradictions As a child, I adored motor cars and everything associated with them - garages, road signs, tax disks. I had quite an impressive selection of Dinky and Corgi diecast toy cars. I may have had James Bond’s golden Aston Martin, complete with bullet-proof shield and ejector seat, but most of the models were replicas of the saloons, estates and convertibles one saw on the roads at the time. If anyone in our family bought a ne

Old snaps in a St Bruno tin. Apart from the the odd school shots of their children, my parents did not have photographs of relatives dotted all over the place. My mother would doubtless have considered them clutter that she'd have had to dust around. Throughout my childhood, there was a large, framed, baby photograph of my naked father hanging on the kitchen wall, but with hindsight it was very out of character. I’ve come to assume that it must have amused my mother to have i

1965 - Magic on a Shoestring Whenever I’d done something naughty, my mother would tell me ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ and I knew I was in trouble. If she were to say instead that she wanted ‘a word’ with me, then I knew it would be bad news, but that whatever it was, it was unlikely to have been my fault. She took me aside a few weeks before Christmas in 1965 and gently explained that our decorations had become far too shabby and tattered to hang, but we couldn’t affo

‘I’m sorry about it Christopher - but there we are,’ was my mother’s unconvincing explanation as to why I had to survive on ready meals. She often told me tales of the wonderful things she used to cook and bake when my older brothers were children - crusty bread, sumptuous cakes and delicious savouries - but after my father died I had Heinz, Findus and Bird’s Eye to thank for most of my meals. Findus French Bread Pizza (Evening Standard 1979 courtesy of the British Newspape

In 1961/62, when I was a few years old, my father was always busy and my mother was often rather poorly. I couldn't be left unsupervised, so I would be sent ‘on my holidays’ to the Parkers, the older couple across the street. Uncle Charles and Auntie Tootie I called them, even though we were in no way related. Lleyn Street was full of unofficial uncles and aunties. Uncle Charles was a rather taciturn Mancunian with a pencil moustache that made him look a bit like Clark Gable.

On Monday October 15 1984, I realised one of my ambitions by leaving Pwllheli, the town I grew up in, for London and a career in the Civil Service. I worked in Wood Green, King’s Cross, Hornsey, Holloway, at Southwark Bridge and finally Westminster, for three government departments. I consider London a friend. It celebrates with me when I'm happy and comforts me when I'm sad, and it would take something extraordinary for me to ever leave. But, even though I no longer have fa

My father was a teacher, a headmaster and a Sunday school teacher, so I assumed he knew pretty much everything. His answers to my...

When a house becomes a home, it becomes something greater than bricks and mortar. Estate agents often use the word 'space' - and that is all a house is, a space that needs filling with love and anger, laughter and drama, comfort and mistakes, the smell of cooking and the sound of music. 2 Llyn Crescent Ferndale c.1912 Despite my suffering badly from car sickness, I loved visiting my Auntie Eva’s home in the Rhondda Valleys. From 1957 she lived there alone, but it always fel

[I posted a series of childhood and youth reminiscences on Facebook a while back, and although they mostly relate to the 1960's-1980's, I thought I'd re-visit some of them here. This one covers a rather sinister episode.] In Wales the sheep are always there, always munching, and always watching. You could be forgiven for believing that they are all the same - but they are not. There are different breeds of course, but it’s more than that. In North Wales they are timid and wil

The twenties and thirties may have been before my time, but I have a wealth of photographs of my parents and their siblings to inspire me. My mother's older sister Annie-May is a growing inspiration, but had I ever told her that, she’d have chuckled dubiously and said something like: “Ahhh, now then…well…you see…” which would have dissolved into further chuckling. Annie-May Hughes at 17 on 27th September 1921 There was a charming tradition at the time of having a photographi

My older brother Jos was writing books before I even started, having published several travel guides and articles. The real writer came...