An eDiary of Some of the Key Things in Don's Life
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As some of my memories are starting to slip away in my 70's, I've set up these eDiary pages for some key threads that meant more to me than any others…
they may well get "tweaked" as I recall others and/or get replaced! I started these eDiaries in the mid-80's, organizing into decade-based pages… each are sorted by year and months, showing from Jan to Dec;
click on any of these sections to visit that decade?
     Main page | 2010's | 2000's | 90's | 80's | 70's | 50's-60's ( this page )

You should also consider visiting my profile page that shares more info about me vs. just these eDiary pages, or, see my list of the Global Places I've visited? For a more "historical" perspective, you could start your visit at the very end of my eDiaries & then scroll up to read them backwards in time? Also, the embedded textual event content reflects the time of the events vs. current time—view the pages full-screen?

I regularly updated these eDiaries until the creation of FaceBook's 2011 "eHistory" feature, whereupon I stopped… sadly, my account crashed out in 2019 ( while I was updating my profile ) and I had to redrill some of the "lost years" to get them back!

Have fun, regardless ;)


To begin my earliest eDiary memories page, I will share that in late July of 2024, a thought came into my mind
    Capture my key childhood & early-teenage events **before** they become no-longer-recallable!!
I then sat down to rebuild this page with key data from my CV ( parts of which are embedded here! ), my Resume that shares many work events as well as some of my memories


The story of the many years of my youth begins with my birth in 1955 and ends quite abruptly in January of 1971 with my Dad evicting me ( at age 15½ ) from my childhood home ( literally, a forced & permanent departure! ) to head off to the British Army & onwards… With dozens of threads in my memory from the late 50's ( which was when I started to become "aware" after being a baby for 18-20 months ) through to the end of the 1960's, **please** take each event as you read with a small dose of salt vs. a frown—memories aren't a guarantee!

Thoughts, comments, etc are always welcome… Cheers!

Those Early Years of My Life in the 1950's

So, early on a Monday morning in July of 1955, I was born at the Aston Greys Nursing Home ( the snap of the property shown is from 1927 ) at 21-23-25 Knole Road(+) on the north-west corner of Southcote Road in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England—the county was changed by the local government to Dorset in 1974

That nursing home was just a few minutes walk (~500+yards) from the flat at 10 Carlton Road ( scroll down the linked page for details? ) where Mum ( who was aged ~24½ at that time ) & Dad were living in late 1954. Mum would have visited the nursing home several times prior to my birth, with zero costs: the National Health Service started up in 1948

Aston Greys was operated at that time by the owners, Misses Adams & Birkhead, Proprietors, with skilled nurses; today's address for the nursing home is in Boscombe—the building has also been replaced by a block of flats ( or by a business ) at #21 Knole Rd & at #23-25 by the Curtis Lodge retirement complex, built in 2007 with 66 flats. An interesting web link also popped up in my research: an Aston Greys Facebook page!

I was advised ( likely in the '60s ) that I had arrived at "4:55am" & that I was a tiny baby… With my ( reported ) low birth weight of 5 pounds/5 ounces(ish), my Dad said that when he held me as a baby, I was like "a ball of string with 5 pieces attached" for my head & those skinny arms & legs!



        Many recalled events ( shared below ) are from my 10+ years of school life… With around 175 school-days per year, a total of ~1,900 days for me
             were actually idle ( e.g. "not in school" ) making >1,000 days to sadly get into all kinds of trouble!!

The Start of my Schooling in the Early 1960's

My school life started at the age of 5+ after the summer in 1960 ( around September 5th ) at the Infants' School for Boys on Coronation Avenue(+), Moordown, Bournemouth, a short walk from home—Mum walked with me there & back every day for a while as there were ( most likely! ) tears… The school was changed in the late '90s to the "Moordown Community Centre" ( it shows when you click the school location, above! ), replacing the then-abandoned school from several years before


The Mid-60's


My Senior School Years in the Late '60s

In September of 1966 I moved up to the Winton & Moordown Secondary School for Boys at age 11, where I stayed until my eviction in September 1970…
This was a return to Coronation Ave from the Junior school on Oswald Road—I had to walk back & forth to the Annex for metalwork, physics, TD, etc. The school was shut down in 1999 with the consolidations and has been restructured as the Moordown Community Centre


Some of the Places that I Actively Recall


The End of the 2 Decades of My Childhood & Teenage Years…

Well, that's pretty much the end of the events in my early life… visit the more recent decades here? You could also go to my Bio summary page, the personal profile that I created a few years ago, a page that shares my many years of work, my family tree page or visit my FaceBook where you can scroll down to view my events year-by-year

As I expect that parts of my eDiary will improve and/or change as I tag some more year-by-year info, or clarify some of the threads… watch this space! Please also visit my privacy page to be aware of some legal stuff?

As a final thought, view some snaps of me & my family in my older album? Enjoy!! ;)

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