This is me at the age of around four in the year nineteen-mumblety-mumble…
That's my dad beside me, Lt Col Terence Pierce-Goulding, although he himself never bothered much with titles and formality.
Whenever I asked him, "What did you do in the war, daddy?" (he was quite a bit older than my mother) he used to reply, "I cooked the sausages for all the other soldiers."
It wasn't until years later that I found out that he was involved in the Canadian army operation for D-Day and went on to serve on Montgomery's staff and later yet at the Nuremberg trials.
Until I was two, we lived in Grosvenor Square. Grosvenor Square is where I learned to walk.
And where I learned to guide. My mother always told the tale of how I would totter through Grosvenor Square, point at this statue of Roosevelt…
… and utter the word:
"Daddy!"
Doesn't every toddler think their daddy should get a statue?
The pic at the top of this post was taken in the garden of the house in which I was brought up on Meadway in Hampstead Garden Suburb. We be pass by the old place on my Hampstead Garden Suburb tour.
My Week Ahead…
Saturday 22nd Old Westminster with London Walks - meet at Westminster tube (exit 4) 11am
Saturday 22nd British Museum Highlights with London Walks - meet at Russell Square tube 2.15pm
Keep In Touch…