People

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Christopher Townson

My name is Christopher Townson and I have lived in Colsterworth with my wife Cora for the about nineteen years. I was born in Wokingham in Berkshire on the 15th of April, 1948. My parents divorced when I was four years of age and from Wokingham I went to London where I stayed with my mother`s grandparents for a while. Then my grandmother on my father`s side looked after me and an aunt as well. My father remarried when I was nine and between nine and sixteen and a half, I lived in Reading with him and my stepmother. She is still alive, bless her, at ninety-seven but not very well at the moment. I have no idea what happened to my mother. Education-wise I failed my 11-plus and went to a secondary-modern school like our wonderful Deputy Prime Minister but unlike him, I haven`t got sour grapes about going to a secondary-modern. In fact it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Read more....

John Turpie

My name is John Ernest Turpie and I was born in Woolsthorpe on the 29th of November 1930 which makes me seventy-five obviously. We went away from the village when I was three. I have a sister, Heather, and later two brothers. My father was a regular in the Royal Air Force and we moved about the country to different stations with him such as Hucknall, Farnborough and all places like that. I went to many different schools which was a bit of a struggle as at one school I might be six months behind the rest of the class, or at another a bit in front. I always excuse any lack of knowledge that I might have on this broken education. I had a happy childhood although I never knew a settled home. Then in 1938, my father was posted to Singapore and we were left at Farnborough. Read more....

Shirley Topham

My name is Shirley Topham, though I was born Shirley Wright on Christmas Day in 1935 in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. My father`s name was Willie and my mother`s name was Connie. My brother Philip was five years old at the time and he always said he did not want a brother or a sister. Unfortunately I was born on the best day of the year for him and he was really upset as I robbed him of all the attention he would have got from our parents. He never forgave me. For many years he resented me being there. Once he left me in my pram at his friend`s house in the garden when he was supposed to be looking after me. He may have forgotten all about me being there. Anyway, Mum had to go looking for me and found me abandoned! Read more....

The Very Reverend Oliver William Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes

My name is Oliver William Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes I was born in the Houses of Parliament, and very few people can say that. I had better explain that it was not an accident in the Distinguished Stranger's Gallery, but that my grandfather, who was an official of the House of Commons, had a flat there and that was where I was born. My father was a soldier and I travelled endlessly practically from birth. Aldershot was the place I remember best, as I suppose most soldiers' children do. Certainly I remember the experience of going for the inevitable Sunday afternoon walk through rows of tanks on Farnborough airfield because our home was actually at Farnborough. We watched as, for an experimental period, they tried to propel aircraft off the ground using steam propulsion. There was no security at all. There was a good deal of living with grandparents when the Army took my parents to India. Read more....