Philip,

Have you gone all 'grumpy old man' on us?

My Father took me shopping in the pram when I was only a week old apparently. He struggled home with the shopping, proudly put it all away for my exhausted Mum. I was their first child. Proudly bringing her in a cup of tea and asking her how she was (it was his first trip out with me) Mum enquired if I'd slept all the time, because I was so quiet. Dad covered the distance back to the shops much quicker without the pram or shopping to handle and I was still there. Where he'd left me in my pram. Thankfully this was in the sixties and no harm had come to me in the 10 minutes or so he'd been away.

On another occasion my Mum left my younger brother outside a shop in Wembley High Road. When she came out of the shop someone had swapped my brother out of his nice new buggy and left him in a battered old one! A couple of weeks later Mum spotted her buggy and proudly boasts of how she swapped the babies back and took her buggy home again.

My brother later went on to become a Policeman and I'm sure that this incident will have encouraged him in his career...

Of course, my parents didn't even own a car back then. Didn't need one. We had our own train that would arrive within a few minutes of arriving on the station platform to take us wherever we needed to go.

I hope your Status Quo tribute went well?

Regards and have a lovely weekend

John

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