Benefit Street, Brighton.

  When I was 16 I was living a double life. During term-time I was a convent Boarder in a rather posh school in Australia. I was 'too young' for most things; I wore my hair in two skinny plaits; clumped about in sensible school-shoes; and and was condescended to by everyone in the world who was over 17. But during the long Summer Holidays and the shorter ones in between, I flew home to my tropical island in the sun and lived my real life. In this world I rarely wore shoes; my hair - which had never in my life been cut - flowed freely down my back and over my bum and I wore a frangipani or hibiscus behind one ear. In this world I had been driving for the past two years; smoked cigarettes socially, was rather knowledgeable about wines and whiskey, and was treated no differently to anyone else. It was in this world that my father, asked to do a spot in the annual Xmas Concert down at the Army barracks, airily informed all and sundry that he would be accompanied by his Glamorous As...

  When my father was 16 he ran away and joined the circus. Yep - wanted to lead with that line to get this over and done with: - it isn't just a cliche, or a tired plot line. Some people really have , in real life, and from time to time, done it - and my father, George Simcox was one of them. Even people who are aware that this can be a fact rather than a fiction, looking at George would doubt it.   He was so much the stereotypical RAF Officer the idea was ludicrous. His hands were always impeccably manicured, his blue-black hair Brylcreamed into submission but for a stray, somewhat romantic, recalcitrant lock. Like Hugh Grant's.  In his youth he looked a bit like David Niven in all those WW2 movies (" a mean little moustache" my mother always said about that incarnation.) In his middle years, when he and Jimmy Edwards were fighting The Battle of The 'Tache, (which developed into The HandleBar Club still going strong here in Brighton I discovered to my joy. ) he...