Bobs Life until we met

Bob was born at Buckingham on 16th February 1955, he was the fifth of 6 children, in order they were Brenda, Barbara, Twins Peter and John, Robert and Janet, there was a 7th child which died within a few days of birth.  The family claim it died because it was born on the wrong day of the week, Boys were born on a Wednesday and all Girls have been born on a Saturday, and this baby was born on a Thursday.
His first school was Buckingham Infants School, he used to have to go down a hill, cross a road, cross the river on a footbridge and round a corner to get to school.

Bob and Janet
He had several friends some of who lived at the Police Houses across the road and an American friend who lived in a Mill just out of town.
When he was 6 in 1961, he moved to Great Billing outside Northampton, he remember making a plasticine dog for a christmas display about Old Mother Hubbard for Great Billing Primary School, the Headmaster was Pop Gardner, he was well liked by all the children, he read stories and was a great story teller because he could characterise. he remembers Rudyard Kiplings Just So Stories and The Hobbit, His Favourite TV programme was Fireball XL5, his best friend was Thomas Eke who lived in Little Billing.
He was part of an experiment to replace the 11+ with an IQ test, anyone with a score less than 110 went to secoradary school anyone with 120 or over got to go to Grammar School or High School, if you were in the middle you had to retake, Bob got 116 so he had to retake.
He attended Moulton Secondary Modern School, he was there for 5 years.  2 best friends were Robert Baldwin and Mark Colyer, during the 1st year he joined the school choir, shortly after he started to learn to play the violin and left the choir and joined the orchestra.  The violin teacher was a visiting teacher who came in at lunchtimes once a week, so they had a seperate dinner to everyone else and had food for eight between 5 of them. As part of the orchestra Bob attended Music Competitions held at Oundle where they consistantly came the top three, and he still has the same violin.
At the end of 3rd year decisions had to be made as to what GCE O Levels and Bob wanted to take art and technical drawing which were done at the same time so you couldn't take them together so the school made special arrangements, which meant he had to give up games.
He took 11 GCE O Levels and passed 8.  He then went on to do A levels in a Northampton School.
His Dad was made redundant so they had to move.
They moved to South Lopham Near Diss in Norfolk, at this time only Bob and Janet remained at home.
Bob started 6th Form at Diss Grammar School but the syllabus was different, so he gave up and went and got a job.
He then did a summer job as a photographic assistant in Diss, he then got an apprenticeship in heating and ventilation, at Young Austen Young in Norwich.