My first day at school was late in term one and all the other first years had been learning to dance around a Maypole. My first impressions of school were watching boys and girls dancing round the pole while the ribbons they held made intricate and precise pink, yellow, blue and white patterns as they wrapped around the pole.

Comes my turn the dancing and weaving in and out did not seem so easy and the precise pattern of the ribbons round the pole had changed to random.

Demoted from dancing I was placed in the band but being a latecomer the only instrument left was the triangle. While the others played symbols and flutes I waited patiently for my turn. When the teacher pointed to me with her baton I struck the triangle the hardest blow I could. It broke, fell to the floor with a clatter and the whole band stopped playing.

Fortunately for me my time at this first school was brief. My next primary school was very different no maypole dancing or bands here. The walls of our classroom were lined with boards on which someone had painstakingly numbered the times tables. These varnished boards surrounded us all day and each day was spent learning and then reciting a new table. The more tables you learned the further forward in the class you were allowed to sit and the more the teacher liked you.

Barbara Windsor is best known as the cheeky, blonde girl in the ‘Carry On’ movies and recently for her role in the long running UK TV soapie ‘Eastenders’. But her autobiography reveals that she began her career as a stage actress and this continued throughout her life. She began an award winning stage career in the early Sixties and this continued for parts in legitimate West End productions, in America and to Christmas pantomime at the seaside.

Her childhood in London’s East End was poor but she was a good student. A need to show off and a domineering mother drove her to be a singer and dancer.

She reveals her many affairs with men, famous or otherwise, as well as a taste for drinking and the good life in general. She has been married three times.

The health problems that plagued her, many brought on by stress, are detailed in the book. They only added to the resolve that took her from nowhere to national icon.

Written in the mid 90s this version was updated in 2000. Barbara is still performing (at age 71) and carrying on her charity work.

For me this was a fascinating look at a woman who I have adored since I was a teenager. Her insights into ‘Carry On’ are few but unmissable for the converted especially her comments on the other actors. So this is a book I recommend if, like me, you are a Sixties child.

When I was 6 years old the Queen visited my home town and my grandmother took me to see her on the drive from the railway station down London Road. All the children in the crowd lining the road had small Union Jacks unfortunately because we arrived late I did not get a flag.
As the Queen drove by she spotted me in the crowd (I had wormed my way to the front). When she saw me the Queen stopped waving, pointed to me, turned to Prince Phillip and said "Look at that horrid little boy waving he doesn’t even have a flag!”
And that’s how I met the Queen.
(This is an almost true story)

Reading back through some of the earlier blogs I see some bloggers are SF fans. I have been writing SF for over ten years. In ’05 I gathered all my published and unpublished SF short stories into an anthology Retribution and Other Reactions. I still have a small number of the books left if anyone would like an autographed copy. Some of the stories were published in magazines both here in Oz and in the US plus some others I wrote especially for the anthology.
The price of $10 is for printing and postage costs.
Derek Smith

Talking to a friend about growing up in the Sixties in England he said the the Shadows were the background music to his life then. I agreed but thought that they were later overtaken by the Beatles.

THE BOARDING HOUSE

by

Derek Smith

Autographed and dedicated copies of the book can be posted to you for $10. Please contact me at clipstone@optusnet.com.au if you are interested.

A  young English migrant arrives in Sydney in 1966 and finds lodgings in a boarding house. The House is home to a dozen young men from all over Australia and the world. It is their first time away from home and they explore the exciting, and sometimes dangerous place, that is Sydney in the swinging 60s.

If you are a migrant, lived through the sixites, remember them or have lived in Sydney at the time you will connect with the characters in this book a fictionalised account of the discovery of a whole new life.