First 8 Years

Born in London, at St John’s Wood Hospital, (1965), lived in a rented apartment in St John’s Wood our neighbour who was from Russia, I remember my mother telling me that she taught her how to make a amazing Russian Salad not that my mum ever decided to make it for me, still dreaming about it. 

By the age of 2, we moved to Barnet into a 3 bed house, once a week between 1pm to 3pm we had to hide and were not allowed to make any noice as some government agencies used to show up.! 

My Mum and Dad left India with barely anything and my father started to  buy and sell used engines all over the world, slowly as business picked up my fathers brother and his wife joined us in the uk along with their daughter. So we had four adults and 4 kids living in a 3 bed, (typical Indian family ) it was fun to share a room with 3 girls and also to be bullied by all 3 of them. I am the middle child (reject child) as the middle one always get blamed for everything.. My mother and Aunt, when it came time for us to have our baths.. it was one package all 4 in the bathtub and we were washed and dried off as we were on a convoy passing through each section, but as we slowly started to change, my sisters and cousins started to have there baths at different times. 

As business picked up, my aunt, uncle and cousin moved to a place called Bishops Stotford, and we also had an office and yard close to there house. 

My two sisters attended Palmers Green High School and went to Keble Preparatory School, which was about 2 miles away from each other so it made life easy for my mum when it came time to drop off and pick up. We Dreaded every time Harrods had a Sale on as my mum and aunt used to leave from home by 5am, take the bus or train to Knightsbridge and then queue up to be one of the first customers to enter the department store, once in they would head to the glasses department and buy the biggest glasses that they could find.! Every Morning before we would be dropped off to school, these glasses would be taken out of the cupboard and my mother would fill them with Milk, I HATE MILK! It tasted horrible, the only person that liked milk was my elder sister and we used to beg and plead with her, to drink our glasses also if that did not work we would accidentally drop the glasses which really pissed my mother off, after we had dropped 6 glasses my mother finally realized what we were doing and she would stand there with the carpet brush in her hand to make sure that we drank our 😅

One evening my father came home with a huge dead chicken, after my mothers intial shock, we had the most amazing chicken curry. 

We had planned to leave for Wales on Friday and come back on Monday, I think it was a long weekend, my father and uncle the day before we were meant to leave,  had some clients in to purchase used engines and some other construction equipment that they had for sale it was a good day for them so they decided to go out for a late lunch which lead to a huge drinking session, they finally came home around 6ish, totally drunk, my father had fallen down the stairs and cut his leg open and was screaming at the top of his voice that he was dying we had to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital and while all this is going on my uncle was chasing my aunt around the bedroom naked !! Yes we did finally manage to get to Wales, but everything that we planned to do got canceled due to my dad and uncle being a bit under the weather .!

Between 6 to 8 Years my last 2 years in Barnet, I had made a fair few friends and most nights we would ride our bikes around the community or in the Park and generally just have a laugh, I think we were in total 4 guys and 4 girls, I got my first kiss at the age of 7 which was very interesting 💓☺😀

XOXO .. OLD MAN