From Ian,
When we were children Pamela, as she was the oldest, was usually the instigator of any naughtiness that we got up to.
I remember on one occasion, confirmed later by my mum, when we had been particularly annoying, my mum locked us in the 1st floor bedroom so she could get on with the housework. At the time Pamela must have been 7 or 8 years old,.I would have been 4 or 5 and Neil only 2 or 3. Pamela decided that we had to escape so she climbed out of the window onto the ground floor roof which was only about 2 feet wide (but around 10 feet high) and shuffled along to the open bathroom window. I, of course, followed her and Neil, of course, followed me. Our poor mum was in the garden chatting with the next-door neighbour who said to her “don’t look now, but your 3 kids are on the roof”. Fortunately, she managed to stay calm and not cry out and frighten us and waited till we were all safely inside. Afterwards she would always take care to lock us in a downstairs room if we were naughty.
Even though Pamela could be a bit of a tomboy she always looked after us and she would never allow us to take the blame for things we had done if it had been her idea. She was always honest and would never cheat or lie to avoid getting into trouble.
But it wasn’t all naughtiness and misbehaviour. We had loads of fun together as kids, in our own little world with our own private jokes that nobody else would find funny, our little secrets and private language. Even when times were tough we could always rely on one another, care for each other, and cry together when necessary. When bad things happened we felt stronger as a unit. And even for small, silly things. For example, it was Pamela who helped to teach me to ride a bike, because if she could do it, I had to be able to!
When we were both grown up and married I always knew that I could rely on Pamela’s honesty and good judgement and, although we were separated by distance and didn’t see each other as often as we would have l
Ian William johnson
07/10/2021
