The reason we'd been given a three bedroom house was that the mines in the area were closing in 1958 and when we'd settled down and I had been a junior official in the mine for a year we had a good look at things. My wife agreed it was time we moved and I went to the Stirling area and another house in a village. This time the house was at the end of a block with the bedrooms upstairs. The stairway was papered in black wall paper and that had to be changed, followed by each room in turn. The neighbours were kind and helped and we soon made friends. I was allowed to go to play badminton one evening a week with my neighbour on condition that the ladies had a night out at the cinema themselves while we baby sat. The new spring blossom in the picture reminds me of my wife, bright without being garish, delicate without being brittle yet full of life.

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