A glimpse into my childhood.

The problem with growing up in a comfortable, nuclear family during the nineties was that there was nothing particularly exciting going on. It’s impossible to compete with the tales your parents and grandparents tell you about “Back in my day”. The stories of how they suffered food rationing and the war, how they never complained and just got on with it. So it would seem a lot of stories this generation will be telling their grandchildren will revolve around the times the internet cut out for a night, who won X-Factor, or the time they had to trek to the 24hr Tesco in order to get some milk.

That’s not to say growing up here was necessarily dull. Canvey Island certainly had its charm. I remember the flood sirens that used to go off every Tuesday at 10:00am, just in case we ever suffered such a fate as the floods of ‘53 again. It always worried me that one day there would actually be a flood at that time, and maybe we wouldn’t know because everyone would just assume it to be the test siren. Luckily that never happened.

I remember once being in a room of adults, but feeling as though I was the only one who really understood. Too much laughter and conversation about such menial things like the weather and how it was affecting their perennials. It felt as though I was observing tropical fish in a tank- so bright and graceful, yet of no real substance.

When me and my sister were about eight and ten, we made up different plays. We’d perform them for our mum and dad, even making posters which we’d advertise on the doors. They’d exclaim “Super Sisters!” and other such enticing titles, complete with ‘no-smoking’ warnings and ‘please switch mobile phones off'. If anything, we were thorough with our plays. We’d rehearse them a good three times (and by our standards that was a lot) and when it came down to the performing, we’d totally ace it, coming out from behind the curtains, and it really did feel like we were on stage at times. I remember when we performed a play on the subject of alcoholism. It was strange, to say the least. I wonder what my parents thought of it, watching their children shout out “Hi, I’m Terry, I’m an alcoholic, and I beat my wife”. I think in some ways they were proud we could act out such hard-hitting topics.

I grew up watching films my dad liked, and although completely inappropriate for children of our age, we’d laugh at the Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Watching naked men was so very entertaining as a child (well, it still is) and I loved the Holy Grail. “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” is just such a beautiful line. We were brought up on good music like the Beatles, Queen and the Moody Blues. I thank my dad for that. He taught us well. However a lot of the time my mum and dad were too busy working, so we spent the majority of our youth in the care of our Nan and Granddad. Trips to the beach with chip butties, the time I got stung by a jellyfish and my Granddad told me if I drank orange juice it would make it feel better (of course it did, that was the magic of being a child). I enjoyed going to the place with the squirrels. One of them bit me. I didn’t forgive it.