Outside the family home in Kettlebrook, June to the left, on his right Elsi then Ivis, the couple behind are the lodgers.
This is my mothers father Robert Walker. He was a coalminer in Tamworth most of his life. I can still rememe taking the bus with him up to the pit head to collect his wages not long before he retired with ill health.
I must have been about 6 or 7 when he died of what was then called coal dust, in a sense this was correct, as he had ling disease. Most miners from the local collery never reached retirment as they died first of something industrial related.
My brother who is 4 younger than me was born in Lancashire and was due in December and my mothers doctor was worried about her be cut of by snow in our rather deserted spot in the Pennines. So he wanted her to be taken in to hospital very early just in case. I was therefore
packed of to my Grandparents for a total in the end of 3 months. It was probably during this period that I can remember going to the pit head with my grandfather. I am told I did not recognise my parents when they came to pick me up. But this could have been an early indication of my dyslexia, as I have found that I do have problems in
recognising peoples faces.