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Let me introduce myself:-
My name is Michael George Robinson, I was born in late 1944 in the village of Laleham, which is near the river Thames and the larger town of Staines in the county of Middlesex. A war baby! Both my parents survived WW2, my father Michael served in the Navy and my Mother Joan Schofield survived the onslaught at home. I will be including links to both my parents “Early Days” being their memoirs, written in their own words, unfortunately Dad didn’t finish his but Mum done a pretty good job. I wish that I had taken the time to ask more questions and put names to faces on old photographs but Its always the way isn’t it you always wish you had done something when its too late, now a lot of information has been lost forever.
I am also researching my Dads war so will be including lots of bits and pieces. He carried a 1936 diary with him throughout the conflict and made lots of notes that I am trying to get in a chronological order and matching up with his war record. I also have several other bits to do with specific places that he visited. You can go directly to those pages by clicking here.
 
I am researching and recording the family history as a great retirement project for me to keep the grey matter active, but mainly for my Niece and Nephew Michelle and David so that they will have access to it and more importantly to be able to pass it on to the next generation.
 
I spent the first few years of my life in the family home in Staines Road, Laleham. It must have been very crowded there as My Gran and Grandad, My uncle Charlie, aunty Louie plus Mum, Dad and me all lived there (they told me I spent most of my sleeping time in a drawer so I didn’t need much space - apparently it was safer with the bombing and all). I can’t remember much about the house but as I used to visit it very often throughout my youth I do remember:-
The Air raid shelter in the back garden, The outside toilet which although attached to the house meant a dash out the back door into the cold - and hopefully the light was working. The old black telephone in the cupboard under the stairs and of course Trixie the dog. My aunty Madge reminded me that we also had a bathroom upstairs and that the Phone was an extension line to Mrs Winkworth so she could get in touch with my grandfather who worked for her.
 
I don’t have many memories of my Grandfather even though I was 9 when he died in Jan 1953. I remember sitting on his knee in the dining room in front of a nice warm fire playing with a black bendy stick man. I also remember visiting him when he was sleeping downstairs in the front room. I have photos of us in various places including the seaside and at the Exhibition of London in 1950.
Other memories include the day of Charlie and Olives wedding on 24th July 1954 we were standing outside and spied a plane overhead, Heathrow is very close, I said it was a De Havilland Comet and Jonathan insisted it was a Super Constellation - they were quite different and I still don’t know what it was.
 
In 1947 we moved to our very own house on a new council estate about 2 miles away. Before we moved in we used to visit to have a look and I remember one dark evening we lit a fire in the front room and were sitting on some drawers we had taken from the fitted unit in the dining room. Why should I remember that? Our new house was very posh. We had a back door entrance hall that housed two cupboards on the right, which we used for storing the coal and coke and an outside toilet on the left. It also had an attached shed which came in very handy as Dad was a Plumber and had lots of tools. The Kitchen was always the warmest room as it housed the boiler which heated our water. We had open fires in the Front Room (Lounge) and Mum and Dads bedroom, and electric fires in the dining room and both other bedrooms. In the kitchen we had a fitted wall fridge and a larder with a super big sink (you know the type that’s now coming back in fashion) of course we replaced it with a modern one many years later. Now I had to mention the windows single glazed with ice on the inside and outside in the winter months. Our beds used to be covered with blankets and coats and anything else to keep us warm you would jump in bed and curl up in a little ball and stretched out slowly as you got warmer (this was long before the quilt and double glazing arrived) happy days!
We had a small front garden and another big garden at the back. In the back garden we planted vegetables initially but eventually it became Grass with shrubs at the end. Also over the fence at the end of the garden was Buckland Primary School that I attended from age 7 to 11 but I couldn’t climb over the fence so had to walk 100 yds down the road and 100 back to get to school
 
to be continued