After leaving school, mum worked in Marks & Spencer in Brighton for a few years. At this time she met Don at a roller skating rink in Brighton. I think she was about 15 when they met and he was 16, so that must have been around 1950. Don was working as an apprentice printer. They went out together for a number of years before getting married. She said they would visit nearby towns like Eastbourne and Worthing by bicycle with their friends Roy & Eve and Anne & Ted, eventually they all got motorcycles, Dad had a Vespa that they used to go out on. Dad was also playing the bass and formed his own band, The Don Williams Quartet (adopting his middle name of William as a 'stage name', he felt that The Don Botting Quartet didn't have the right ring to it!). He got the job of 'house band' at the Regent Nightclub in Brighton, which was located at the clock tower, where Boots is now) and played there a number of nights during the week, whilst still working as a printer.

By the early sixties they had also bought their first house at 52 Graham Crescent in Mile Oak and by this time had two children, myself and Phil. I was attending Mile Oak Infants School. One of my earliest memories was mum taking me outside during the harsh winter of 1963. Dad had dug the snow from the drive and to me it was a massive canyon with the snow way above my head on both sides. Mum also made friends with Jean and Bob next door who had children of about the same age, Mum and Jean would remain firm friends from then right up until her passing earlier this month. Recently they've been on holidays and cruises together as described in Mandy's post, and Jean has visited every week.

In about 1965 Dad got an offer to join the house band at a new prestige Nightclub and Casino, Caesars Palace in Luton, which he accepted. The house in Mile Oak was sold and mum, phil and I went to live at Nan's, in Hollingbury, whilst Dad moved to Luton and set about finding us somewhere to live. During this time Phil started school at Carden Infants School, whilst I continued to attend Mile Oak Infants School for a while. During that time Mum would see me onto the No 5 Bus in the morning and I would go the whole bus route (over an hour) and get off at the end in Mike Oak to get to school, at the end of the day I would get on the bus and travel journey back to Hollingbury where mum would be waiting at the bus stop for me, I was 6 years old. I remember we spent Christmas at Nan's, the three of us living in the back room, I got a battleship for Christmas, that actually fired missiles, fantastic!

Eventually, the house purchase was completed and we moved up to Dawlish Road, Luton and a new life. Phil and I started new schools and we quickly made friends with the neighbours who both had children our age, we also got a cat called Tangie (short for Tangerine due to the colour of her 'bib') and a Rabbit called Thumper. We would often go to rehearsals with dad and mum on Sunday afternoon to watch artists like, Matt Munro, Tom Jones and Norman Wisdom prepare for their shows. Mum and Dad wanted me to learn a musical instrument, they sent me to piano lessons, but it didn't last, the piano teacher was angry that I wasn't practicing enough between lessons, I didn't admit we had no piano at home, and I was using a 'paper keyboard'... They then tried trombone, which lasted a little longer, but eventually they gave up on me and sold it to buy a Bass for Phil...