‘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...

The booklet welcoming new staff. As a porter/linesman for Butlin's Staff Accommodation I'd had to clear up pigswill and donkey debris, but worse was to come. Phantoms and Flatulence   The bathroom block cleaners and I were terrorised by a villain who became known to all as ‘The Phantom Crapper’. At first the culprit would poo into a polystyrene chip carton, stick a wooden fork into it at a jaunty angle and leave it on the chalet line like a piece of art - which he may well ha

A collection of Butlin's Pwllheli badges, all from before my time. Butlinland One gloomy November day in 1982, I found myself in a most unusual situation. In the East Annex of the Pwllheli Butlin's camp, I was balancing precariously on the roof of a trailer normally hauled around the site by a tractor. A manager in a suit was laboriously pulling it along the deserted chalet lines with me on top of it, clutching an eighteen-foot pole and looking for all the world like the Grea

In the summer of 1968, drawn by stickers exchanged in the school playground, I suddenly became interested in football. My father was...

[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

In November 1984, within a month of moving to London, I attended a music and film show at the Barbican Hall, marking seventy years of the...

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

Some of the many books I bought from Gay's The Word over the years. Growing up in a Saucy Postcard World The occasional sex scenes in my...

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

On social media, my eye is often drawn to old black and white images of familiar places, prompting a sense of nostalgia, often for a time...