Roger and I had a Twin Pram with fold up hoods that met in the middle – Mum really got a charge of driving the pram around and women would come to admire her achievement, so we were dressed in only the best clothes, and in winter camel hair coats.  Whilst shopping, the purchases were pushed between the hoods on rainy days – it was not a good idea to put a jug of bleach in the pram – back at home when the hoods came down, the camel hair coats were reported to be quite white, and probably rotted out!

At our home Ridgemont, there were always squabbles, sometimes Roger picking on David, other times Ed would side with Kathy to put Roger in his place.

We had a nanny for several years called Joan. The Red Quarry Stone tiles in the kitchen were freshened up each day with Red Cardinal Polish – on the nanny’s day-off Roger and I helped by using black shoe polish instead.

Bacon was rationed after the war – Roger and I found bacon in the fridge and fought over it – the rashers were 3 feet long and dropped in the garden when found. Butter ditto, but unwrapped and dropped in the dirt.

We kids were into Midnight Snacking at an early age – after several feasts in the kitchen, the breakfast room door would be locked – we just went out the front door and in the unlocked back door! Feast was bacon and eggs – the gas oven unfortunately burned the bone handled cutlery – the evidence got thrown over the privet hedge into the brambled empty lot next door – after a decade there was a treasure hoard in that lot.

This hedge was a source of long straight branches, and provided bows and arrows – somehow we avoided killing each other. Next door lived spinster sisters who never complained (to my knowledge) about the shrieks and noise and barking Monty Dog.

We used to have Apple fights (one tree was prolific with unsavory apples ) the wheel barrow was a super shelter.

Mum walked us to Gore Road School the first Day– there after we walked. Once Mr Stedman offered to give us a ride to school – there after we always waited at his garage for 5 minutes in case he was still there!

Mrs Evans Nursery stays – I remember pillow fights splitting the Evans fragile feather pillows.

We walked from Gore Road School to the Whitefield Road Shop and waited in Mum’s Office until she was finished. Often we would fight and make too much noise and got sent to catch the  bus home.

Roger ran afoul of a Michael Humphreys at Pan Tiles, and when we walked past his house his mother would come out and berate Roger as a ruffian.

Family would spend a lot of summer days at Barton Beach – we developed engineering/hydraulic skills damming up the under-cliff streams that would eventually break the gravel/clay/branch walls and swamp unsuspecting beach dwellers below.

At school I often teased Roger (pinching etc) which would prompt Roger to retaliate if he could catch me – I ran swiftly and silently on my toes – Roger would thump along after me down the corridors heavy footed and shrieking – the teachers would stick their head out of the Staff room and summon Roger back for detention while I was around the corner by then.

We read a lot of Enid Blyton (The Famous Five) who were always up to some adventure. Roger and I talked about Underground Camps – during one holiday we went to Hice/Tipper’s at Ashley and saw elevated hedge rows into which there were rabbit holes – an idea was born. At home Roger and we dug a long trench braced the top with timber and put down galvanized sheets covered with dirt. We had candles and red carpeting and a board to cover the entrance – our retreat lasted a week or two – it rained a lot and the retreat got wet and muddy and we lost interest – someone forgot the cover the entrance. One dark night Mum went out to the clothes line and stumbled into our entrance – we got hauled out of bed to fill the trench up in the darkness.

When Roger and I were about 7/8/9? We were shunted off to spend time with Pat and Verna in Lyme Regis. Verna had an Aga Coke Stove in the kitchen, and we watched her each day poke around in the red hot coals – it wasn’t long before we thought that during their absence we should help – we poked the coals with scissors and dropped them when they got too hot and saw how they too glowed red hot after a time, so we tried other kitchen tools too – then we put fresh coke on top to hide our fun – Verna found her scissors etc next day in the ashes. She made us watch while she put all our toys in there to burn! On our last few days there, we investigated a manhole cover in the garden, and on lifting the iron cover we found a gulley with running water 6 feet down there – our hydraulic training kicked in and a few sods later the exit hole was blocked – we were then called in for supper so the lid was replaced. We went home just before Christmas. On Christmas Day Dad got a call from Pat – their drains had backed up – the local plumber finally found out what had caused the backup.

Uncle Ernest and Otto brought an RAF inflatable raft with them on a visit to Barton Beach and duly put all us kids in it – the surf was normally significant there and low and behold, the raft capsized in the surf and us kids were unceremoniously left to flounder in the sandy surf with adults trying madly to find the infants in the water under the raft – that raft was never seen by us again.

Dad had his workshop at the back of the garage at Ridgemont – he was fed up loosing his tools around the garden, and put up a wall and locked door to keep us out – we just climbed over the wall – then he put up chainlink to keep us out – he should not have used a Yale type lock – we could slip a chisel into the lock gap to slip the lock. We learned not to leave traces of our entry and return his tools.

Having Roger as a twin was very handy when it came to inquisitions of who did what piece of mischief – we just blamed each other – Dad got very annoyed one time and brought out an old newspaper reprint telling of the treatment mischief makers got in the past - like beatings, imprisonment, transportation, hanging – it went over our heads and Mum was very unhappy with his inquisition.

Roger and I shared a bedroom of course, and David had a separate room. Our room walls were pitted with our mischief and scribbled upon with abandonment – it was a very long time before redecorating was attempted.

On one occasion Roger was chasing me in a classroom and I knocked the blackboard off its easel and it crashed down on a marble mantelpiece and broke the corner off – I remember carefully putting the broken piece back in place before we resumed our chase….

There are many more stories of the mischief we twins got up to in our youth.