Dennis and Shelagh West, with children Richard, Susan and Andrew (circa 1961)
I was born in Dunfermline, as my father was at that time a naval officer stationed at Rosyth, but he left the navy before I was two years old, so I have no real recollections of my time here except for some dim, silent home movies of a birthday party.
Andrew West on a Tricycle (circa 1964)
This picture was taken at our house in Druid Hill, Stoke Bishop. Of Bristol I remember most the white tigers at Bristol Zoo and having my adenoids removed.
Andrew and Richard West (circa 1966)
Here are me and my elder brother Richard, with pet sausage dog Scampi, eating ice lollies at our maternal grandparents cottage at Knap Farm, Pixley (52° 2'40.72"N 2°29'26.96"W). We spent most Christmases and Easters, as well as many summer holidays, at the farm (my uncle's), and I have particularly fond memories of the pond on the left of the picture (only the flat stone on which I would observe the pondlife from is visible here). One cold and cloudless Christmas evening, when I was perhaps a couple of years older, all the children were running round the garden with sparklers, and my brother was chasing me when he warned me to turn the other way to avoid the pond; knowing my brother I assumed he was tricking me into running into the pond, so I continued my course, and ran straight into and through the ice-covered pond !
Holmwood School (1968)
I was a day pupil at Holmwood School at Formby for only a couple of years (1968-1970 I think). I don't remember well any of my former classmates, but I do remember the PE teacher (dressed in white on the left) and the Art teacher (wearing a cravat on the right), as well as the very stern matron. (It should be obvious which one is me, but if you are having any difficulty, look at the top left corner—throughout my life I have always strived to be peripheral).
I commuted by train every day from Southport, where we lived for about four years, first at 79 Ryder Crescent, then at 46 Westbourne Road (53°37'59.25"N 3° 2'4.98"W), which was a three storey Victorian house just behind the sand dunes.
One year I managed to purloin a rocket from the family's Bonfire Night fireworks, and at the weekend I went across to the dunes, and tied it to my favourite Airfix Spitfire in order to make it fly—it did not fly but the plastic melted into wonderful shapes.
Bishop Vesey School Photo (1973)
I attended Bishop Vesey's Grammar School at Sutton Coldfield from the ages of 11 to 18. I wish I could say it was a happy time, but it was not. I would have been in class 3M in this picture, but I have not been able to identify myself yet. Our form teacher was Mrs. Jones (Maths), who was very nice, and not at all fearsome as some have suggested; however her husband, Mr. Jones, the biology teacher, was an utter bastard who was my personal nemesis for the few years that biology was compulsory—I still occasionally have nightmares about waiting in the cloakrooms on the ground floor of the new building for double biology on a Friday afternoon.
But for every bad teacher (and BVGS had more than its fair share) there is a good teacher, and I do remember with affection the trio of geography and geology teachers that we had in the upper years, 'Freaky Dave' Isgrove, Mr. Barker and Master Bates, and the great field trips we went on to Wales and the Isle of Wight. When I first entered Bishop Vesey's I had wanted to be a vet when I grew up, and spent a great deal of my spare time measuring frogs and newts in our garden pond (to the exclusion of formal schoolwork, which I was never any good at), but sadistic biology teachers soon put an end to that idea, so instead I turned to palaeontology, and started measuring brachiopods to statistically isolate species from assmeblages of similar-looking fossils. In my early and mid teens I travelled far and wide across England and Wales collecting fossils, and took Geology, Geography and Chemistry at A level in anticipation of studying Geology at University.
The Early Years (1960-1978) | The Lost Years (1978-1983) | The Academic Years (1983-1998) | The Wilderness Years (1999-2017)