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Mary Rand, nee Galliers, born 1950s
We moved to Flackwell Heath in the October of 1956. I was just under two years old. My parents had bought a new house on an estate in Northern Woods.
I am told that when we moved in the road and pavements were only hardcore along Philip Drive (we lived at number 15) because building work was still being completed.
I am also told that my first “boyfriend” and I used to walk hand in hand up and down the unmade street between our two houses. His name was Paul Sugden and he was a little younger than me. I remember learning to write his Christian name before I mastered my own, on the sitting room floor, under a table covered with a bright red velvety cloth.
My second birthday was the month after we moved in and my parents did not have much money. In fact they decided money was so tight they would not get me a present as I was so little I would not really understand or feel the loss. However, during his lunch hour in Slough, where he worked, my dad went to Marks and Spencer and saw a little grey cat there. My mum told me he came home with it and said he had bought it as a present because he could not, in the end, buy nothing. The cat, somewhat older and a bit threadbare with a crooked tail, lives in my “toy cupboard” to this day.
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