Where I was born
I was born in Newark on 18th October 1961.
I think it was about 1am, I know that’s still the time I like to be awake. I’m not really a morning person!
Earliest memories
I don’t remember too much about my earliest years, it was a long time ago!
But I do remember we lived out in the countryside, at Red House, Fen Lane, Long Bennington. There wasn’t another house for about a mile!
This is how it looks now. I remember there was an old cast iron water pump behind the house, with a concrete base, where I used to launch my catapult-powered rocket, which would then descend by parachute, usually into the field behind!
I also had a big steel pedal car, really solid and heavy; I wish I could find one like that now! I played out a lot in the garden.
We had a little dog, my Dad named her Lucky because they had saved her. She wasn’t really Lucky at all, she had lots of accidents! She watched my Dad build a fence all round the garden, and as soon as he had finished, she jumped over it!
What was I like?
I was a bit shy as a child, maybe because I didn’t have other children to talk to, but maybe that’s just who I am. While we lived at Long Bennington, my sister, Aunty Gill, was born, but she was too young to talk and play then! I had an imaginary friend, also called Christopher. My parents once redecorated a bedroom, I watched them do it. When it was done, I tried scraping the new wallpaper off myself! (I was always one for DIY…) But it wasn’t me, it was “that other Christopher”!