My father was employed by the British Post Office as a Lines Foreman when I was a little boy. This meant that he was in charge of a group of workmen and in a slightly elevated position compared to some other government employees. When my story begins I was seven years old and the Post Office had notified my father that he was being transferred to work in Newmarket, in Suffolk. As usual on these occasions he moved there ahead of his family, but we knew he would soon find a house for us to live in. Sure enough, in next to no time we were packing our household and personal possessions and joining him to live at Granby St in Newmarket.
Most towns in England are distinguished by industry or craft peculiar to that part of the country and, as the headquarters of the English Horse Racing industry is located in Newmarket I think the town has a mantle of importance somewhat out of proportion to it's size. I found it to be a much more exciting place in which to live than Bury St Edmunds where we had moved from. Horse trainers who were known in racing circles throughout the world had stables in the township. Periodically horse sales would be held that attracted buyers from all over the world. While they were taking place big American cars could be seen in the streets, vehicals that at other times we only saw when we were watching films at the cinema.
For a boy of the age I was then life was happy, I felt secure and and cared for within my family. I had two older sisters and Barbara, only two years older than I am, provided most of my family companionship at this stage of my life. We shared a feeling of security in our situation, but were far from wealthy. In 1934 a Post Office foreman would have been paid only about four pounds weekly and this was the age of one income families. My mother had her own way of household budgeting, I remember she would not live in a house where the rent exceeded one quarter of income and she would not buy shoes that cost more than one pound. We were members of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, (C.W.S.) and purchases of food, clothes and any of an extensive range of many other goods bought from C.W.S. stores increased our credit in a savings account. From time to time we would have a lodger living with us, usually a Post office employee, often a man who had moved "ahead of his family" from another town and needed temporary accommodation until his family joined him.
The nearest school to the house we lived in was All Saints Anglican School that Barbara and I attended. Being a pupil at this school may have been responsible for me becoming a choir member of All Saints church. I was a treble in the choir all the time we lived in Newmarket, it was a good experience for me and an opportunity to meet boys from different families to my own.
In 1938 my father again moved on transfer ahead of his family again, this time to Cambridge.
A year later the second world war started and again our lives changed, eventually leading me and many others to seek a future overseas.