4th –5th April 1976

What an opportunity I went on the schools art weekend to London, staying in the Berners Hotel off Oxford Street. I was the only 3^rd year on the trip the rest were 4^th and 5^th years.

This was the first time I had been away without Mum, what an adventure.

I had visited London many, many times before this as my Auntie lived down there and after my father died we would spend our holidays in the ‘smoke’. I still have a fondness for our capital but only as a visitor at one time I could have lived there but not now.

I recall when I was only about 5 years old (maybe it was just after Dad died?), my uncle and aunt coming up to collect us in their mini and Mum, my 2 brothers and I travelled back down with them. Me being the smallest, travelled in the foot well of the passenger side…….. like how many people can you squeeze into a mini and the age before seat belts and booster seats!!!

I loved going there it was so different to our 4 bed roomed semi in middle class Southport.

They lived way up high in a tower block in Peckham (just like Del Boy Trotter). My Uncle at New Year would dress up as a fairy (complete with tu-tu and wand singing ‘No one loves a fairy when she is 40’) There were parties and always lots of fun and laughter (plus they had a lava lamp).

In the middle of the tower block estate where they lived was a play ground with a round-about, see-saw and swings. On day when we were playing on there I felt sharp stinging pains on my legs. We went back to the flat and there were several red dots up my legs. Was it chicken pox, no I had already had that. An allergy? Maybe? Everyone was baffled by it.. but a swab or two of witch hazel brought down the redness..

It transpired later, however, that someone from another flat was arrested for shooting at people with an air rifle. So that is what it was! It was a friendly neighbourhood!!!

Another joy was going to the Tower of London and seeing the Crown Jewels, The British Museum, The Natural History Museum, Greenwich Observatory, Buckingham Palace squishing up to the front and peering through the gates to see the Changing of the Guard, Madame Tussuad's, the Planetarium… it was fabulous.

I had one of those ‘stepping back in time’ moments about 6 years ago when I took my daughter to the Natural History Museum, she would have been a similar age me when I went. We amble up to the floors to the Darwin Exhibition. Upon entering the room I just rooted to the spot and my jaw dropped. I was a child again. There in glass cases were all the stuffed animals from across the globe I had completely forgotten I had ever seen in my life. I flashed back to being 5/6 years old in my red buttoned up wool coat where I remember staring transfixed at them. I had remembered the Mummy’s (at the British Museum), the meteorites, the insects, the dinosaurs but not this… it was magical.

Anyway back to the 1976 trip. This was the first time I had visited any Art Galleries.

We went to the Tate, The National Gallery (which cost 25p entry) and the Portrait Gallery. I recall seeing some Henry Moore sculptures but I can’t recall where now. So beautiful! My foundation in the love of Art was building by the minute. I was truly enthralled at the Portrait Gallery at the fineness of some of the pieces. They looked so alive you could see every hair, every pore on the skin.

I bought postcards of the pieces I liked at the National Gallery and the Tate (which cost 5p each)

The Beach at Trouville ~Monet

Bathers at Asniers ~Suerat (still a huge favourite of mine, I have a copy hanging in my bathroom)

Cornfield with Cypresses ~ Van Gogh

Sunflowers ~Van Gogh

Woman seated in a Garden ~ Toulouse-Lautrec

La Loge ~ Renoir

The Chair and the Pipe ~Van Gogh

Pelagos ~ Barbara Hepworth

We also went to Westminster Abbey and Trafalgar Square too. What a trip.

And you know I don’t recall any boys being around either!!!!

Just as well really as it was at a time when I did not realise that pigeons were so ....rats with wings!!