Tuesday July 3rd

I have just got back from TOADS exhausted. We have been rehersing as usual and learning new numbers and dance routines. It is a great night out and I really enjoy going. The weekend was a bit traumatic but things are now a little better. I went to Erdington today to see Stu's new shop. It has a very impressive frontage right in the middle of the town, I've never been to this town before but I think I might go back and have a better look as I didn't have much time today.
Shall I talk a bit more about the early years ?
Well as I have already said my sister Val was born rather early and rather tiny, and when she was about two she still couldn't walk. So my grandmother paid £5. a very large sum of money in those days, probably about a weeks wages, for Val to see a orthopaedic specialist, who promptly had her into hospital for the first of about twelve operations and she was put into plaster and when that came off into leg irons. These she had to wear, in between operations, for the next twelve years of her life. She started school but was very often away due to all the hospital visits. I liked school when I first started. I had always wanted to read and write and couldn't wait to get my reading books. Not like todays we weren't given books to bring home. I think it was because there were never enough to go round, we had to share. When I went into the junior school and was allowed to pick a book to read and bring home I picked the biggest one on the shelf. It happened to be Heidi which today is still one of my all time childrens favorite book. In fact thinking about it I shall find it out - oh yes I still have a copy - and give it to my lovely grand daughter Lucy for when she is able to read it. Then it was scholarship time when I was ten. We were taken to another school a long way from mine, well a bus ride, and we all had to sit in a school hall with other children from other schools, I can't remember how many there were, as time has dimmed my memory but it must have been about a hundred, and were given lots of exam papers to do one after the other. Then they gave us lunch and then we had to go back and do some more. All in one day. I passed. So it was off to Grammar school for me. tomorrow I will write so more.So goodnight for now.