The Latch-key Kid

When I was about 13 I became friends with a family a few doors down from where I lived. There were five children, but I was mainly concerned with the youngest who was about eight at the time. I spent most of my time over the next few years at their house, being treated as one of the family.

Edna, the eldest and only girl, was engaged to a young airman, who lived next door to them, but he was killed on a bombing raid and she never married. Tragedy struck my adopted family again when their eldest boy, Stanley, was coming home from Bootle Grammar School during an air-raid when he was struck by a piece of shrapnel, which killed him.

I became the on-off girlfriend of Alan, their third child. I maintained contact with the family each Christmas, as one does, going back to Liverpool on the occasions of the funerals of the Father and Mother. Sadly Alan died suddenly of a heart attack at the early age of 59.

From the age of 14 I suppose I would be classed as a `latchkey kid'. Nanny worked at a munitions factory and my mother at English Electric where they made aeroplane parts. I would pass the time dressing up in my mother's dresses, pretending to be an opera star; put on classical records like Schubert's 8th Symphony, etc, and sing my way through them.

It was about this time that it was decided that I should have singing lessons. My teacher was suitably impressed, saying that I had the voice of an 18-year old.

The war ended when I was 16 and all over Britain `street parties' were held. Mr Cockbain, the father of my adopted family, insisted every time we had a get-together that I sang Gounod's Ave Maria.

So once more I was elevated aloft, this time in the middle of the road, to sing.