Author Lesley Pearse takes us on a trip down memory lane, starting with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953...
One of the oddest things I find about growing older is that, although I often can't remember what I did yesterday, I can recall events in my childhood with utter clarity.
I began my new book on Coronation Day in 1953 because it was a day I remembered particularly clearly. I was eight then and terribly excited because I was to be in a carnival parade as a Hulu Hula girl, wearing a grass skirt my father brought back from Honolulu. My sister was to be a Geisha girl and my brother King Arthur in chain mail made of painted silver sacking.
Sadly we never went to the parade because it poured down, and there I was stained brown with gravy browning, obliged to sit in a neighbour's front room along with half the street, watching the ceremony on a tiny TV screen. It seemed interminable to me, the adults bored us kids to death with their remarks about 'the young Queen' not wincing at the weight of the crown, and how difficult it would be for her to go to the toilet in that long ceremonial cloak. When we finally went home, our white washed house was stained red and blue from crepe paper streamers that my dad had patriotically hung up. It remained like that for several years.
We swam in dangerous ballast pits, caught eels in a length of sacking, built rafts to float on the river and rode bikes for miles.
That day might have been a bit of a disappointment, but I have many wonderful memories of going to stay in a primitive Coast Guards cottage on Romney Marsh. My uncle lived nearby in Rye and his boys Bert and Raymond were the same age as my brother and I. We had so much fun together. We swam in dangerous ballast pits, caught eels in a length of sacking, built rafts to float on the river and rode bikes for miles.
I find it sad that children no longer have that kind of freedom to roam around the way we did back then. I think that is part of the reason I recently moved to a seaside house in Devon - I wanted my grandchildren to have a chance to experience some of the things I did as a child and build equally good memories. No money needed, or special equipment, just hanging out together, playing in rock pools, paddling and building sandcastles. For them to look forward to coming down to me, and finding joy in the anticipation of knowing what to expect, yet at the same time be aware it is totally different to their life at home (and very special). I hope too that moving to a house with a fantastic sea view will inspire my writing further. Even as a child I was a story teller. I was famous for my tales of trunks of gold, of witches and smugglers.
Lesley's new book, Without A Trace, is published by Michael Joseph and available from Amazon.