Gary Sobers was my uncle

1968-1970

One thing I remember from my very early days in London, but not with any sort of vividness, is playing cricket and football in the road with my friends, only one of whose names I can remember. He was called Chester, he was a few years older than me, and I should think he was about 10 or 11 when I was 5 or 6. He lived at the end of our road, we lived more in the middle.

I remember Chester telling me once that his Uncle was Sir Garfield Sobers, the great West Indian cricketer, did I believe him? Yeah of course I did, I was only about 6. I probably told my dad at the time, who, like I would now if confronted with such a tale, probably raised a knowing eyebrow. Do I still believe him now, yeah, of course I do, I’m only 48. I never saw him again when we moved to Suffolk, some things about the move where not for the good.

Telling me about his Uncle must have made quite an impression on me though, as I have never forgotten the impression he must have made on me.

There were obviously a few other people in our street that I knew but I’m buggered if I can remember their names, should have made notes.

As you can imagine, even in London, the streets would have been far less busy than today with traffic, I can’t actually remember being disturbed by traffic at all in those days.

I have a few photos of the time I lived in London, some of me playing, in the garden by myself, makes me wonder if any of the other kids did actually exist or if I made them up.

Not to sure whats going on in this photo, it was a shared garden so I'm either trying to escape, or spying on the people behind, but, as you can see, I'm alone.