And this is yours truly. Former Ledbury Yob and lout from Ledbury Secondary school now re-named The John Masefield High school. Is that right? How I wish I was back there. Such a lot of fun we had but if I could do it again, I would certainly pay more attention to the teachers instead of messing about. Mr Grey, if you're reading this, I'm sorry for all the stress and grief I brought on you.
I thought I should write a little bit about myself and my family and maybe you might get some idea of the sort of person I am now. Reading through the rest of the site, you will probably deduce what kind of yob I was as a youngster. I'm only joking really. I was no angel, but I wasn't a psycopath either. As kids, my friends and I didn't go around beating up old ladies to get a few quid for drugs. We were brought up to respect older people and got a clip around the ear-ole if you didn't. I'm not kidding either
Anyway, on with the little bit of info about me which I will be adding to when I have the time. Thanks for reading anyway.
I was born on the 17th of September 1951, the exact time I don’t know, in the small market town of Ledbury in the county of Hereford. My parents Douglas and May Morris, both now sadly deceased were, at the time of my birth, living in what I can only term as emergency accommodation. It was actually the old Prisoner of War camp, known simply at the time as “The Camp”. There weren’t any proper houses at the time, just the old nissen huts previously occupied by German and Italian prisoners of war, some of whom stayed on in Ledbury after the war and integrated well into the local community.
Anyway, I don’t remember any thing about my short time living in a nissen hut because we were soon living in a new house in Margaret Road, number 32 to be precise which was home until I married and moved to this damned awful city of Hereford. Awful because they seem only concerned with preserving the old way of life without moving forward and I believe the two can go together.
Well, I had four sisters and one brother. Sadly, two of my sisters I never knew because they died before I was born. Margaret was five years old and was knocked down on a zebra crossing in Ledbury just before Christmas 1943 when my father was in Italy serving with the royal artillery. Unfortunately with circumstances prevailing, he wasn’t allowed home for her funeral. The other sister was Jeanette who developed measles complicated by pneumonia. She was just fourteen months old when she died.
This is my father when he was in the army during the second world war. He served in the Royal Artillery in Italy and Greece.
I feel that I should mention one of my cousins who has been working very hard for about the last ten years researching the Morris family and has come up with some astonishing results. I believe she has traced our family back to the middle of the eighteenth century. She has even told me about members of our family that I didn't even know existed. It seems we have family scattered all over the British Isles and further.
And my cousin who has been doing all this work is Kathleen Coley formerly of Ledbury and now residing at Wellington Heath aka Monkey Island. The reason for this nickname is revealed on my website:
The strange thing is, I always used to call her Aunty Kath when I was little. I wonder if she remembers that. I'm sure she'll e-mail me if she does. Anyway, thanks Kath for sending me the manuscript of our family tree and I hope this little mention hasn't embarrassed you too much.
Now for something that is totally irrelevant to my growing up in Ledbury but it is about friendship and the people who make life a lot more fun for me. These are the girls who work at Jo Phillpots hairdressing salon in Kington where my wife and I go to be sheared every six weeks or so. How we came to be travelling to Kington to have a hair cut is another story but we do and have done for the last few years. Here they are.
From left to right they are : Jo, Sophie, Lucy and Ruth. Now can you see why I don't mind travelling all the way to Kington for a hair cut?
The picture was taken on Christmas eve 2005. It's become a tradition to dress up for Christmas eve at the salon.