Sho_Biog.page

Sheona's Incredibly Un-Interesting Autobiography

Updated on: 22nd November 2001

OK, I had a burst of creative genius and tried to get some of my history down. It's a start anyway. But it prompts the question: why do I think anyone would be interested anyway? Isn't it slightly strange that I put my life up here for hordes (ok, about 7) people to look at? Those who know me in the flesh are shaking their heads knowingly...

Anyway, at some point there will be:

* That embarrassing School Bonnet Photo (professional version)

* The Proud Dad and Lady Soldier photo (permission from the proud-Dad pending)

In the meantime, there is just.... well... see for yourself!

OK, wasn't it Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music who said "lets start at the very beginning"? Something like that anyway.

So, I was born...

Ah. There it is you see. Straight away we hit a snag. Because everyone knows that I'm 29. So, it's easy to work out in which year I arrived on this planet....

Drat! Again a giveaway. Mick (my present husband) maintains that all females are from another planet. He claims that I am evidence of this, but refuses to elaborate, claiming that it's difficult to talk from a headlock.... but I digress.

*Takes deep breath*

.... as I was saying, I was born on the 8th December 1963. Which, makes me 29... (count on your fingers if you don't believe me - if you don't get 29 then one of two things is amiss:

a) you counted wrong. Count again.

or

b) you have the wrong number of fingers. Cut some off and count again.

See? I'm 29.

So, I was born, as most of us were (because I'm not totally convinced that some people on this planet, not necessarily female ones, didn't arrive by mothership or transport beam) in the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield. I've never managed to worm many details about this momentous event from my mother. No doubt she is still 'getting over it'. (Having gone through the giving birth process twice myself, I can totally relate to that)

It was one of the worst winters on record. The abiding image people have of this time is the newsreel pictures of the ducks frozen in the Serpentine (sufficiently close to the BBC centre to capture on film)

So, there we were, the infant (and devastatingly cute) baby Sheona, Sheona's mummy, Sheona's grandparents and Uncle Martin (aged 6) living on the Flower Estate (really, Daffodil Road) in Shiregreen Sheffield.

I've been back there within the past five years, and was surprised not to discover the idyllic red-brick houses and tidy front gardens facing that steeply sloping road! It seems to have come as a shock only to me that having turned the corner into Daffodil Road, my car stumbled into some kind of space/time rift and re-materialised in one of the less salubrious areas of Beiruit. Really! My present husband remarked that it is - gasp! - in his words 'even worse than Middlesborough!' Now that might be going too far, but it gives some idea of how things have changed.

Still, the old house was there, and I have to say that I felt a strange sort of proprietry pride that it was the neatest house in the Street. Phew!

(STOP PRESS: Daffodil road is no more! ho hum)

Back then, in the 1960s, and even on my trips to visit my grandparents in the 1970s, the street was neat and tidy. The (what would now be called a "community") policeman used to pop in for cups of tea - until that practice became frowned upon. I remember that he used to let us try his helmet on and I wonder if this was the start of my burning desire to join the police force.

My Dad came back from Singapore, where he had been soldiering, and took us to London. He had been posted to Bromley, Kent, to a TA unit. We lived in a flat, which seemed very high off the ground to me, but in reality was probably only 3 stories high (right mum?). I have a few memories from that time, playing with my Sindy doll and dressing up in my mum's grey apron so I could be Batman on my scooter. I also recall being the proud owner of a Scott Tracey Doll (Thunderbirds still are Go in my book!), dressing up in old curtains with a friend and playing brides (who can imagine the Sheona they know now doing something so girly? Go on, tell me, so I can threaten you with menaces - and I don't mean the gruesome twosome!). I remember watching Dr. Who and hiding in the customary way - behind the sofa - from the Daleks, and going out one day with Dad in the landrover. Where we went I haven't a clue, but a lady in what might have been a farmhouse gave us some nice, tiny, juicy tomatoes.

And then there was the Christmas day when Dad took me out on my Go-Kart, and I lost my Tiny-Ttears doll.... I'll get his version of that written down one day, because he tells it better than I.

Finally, from the Grove Park, Bromley - for that is where we lived in London, Beresford road if anyone is remotely interested - era, I remember the morning when I woke up to the sound of my Mother's voice saying "Sheona, Sheona, come and look what I've got!"

Imagine the disappointment when what she'd got revealed itself not to be the new Thunderbird 2 with Thunderbird 4 inside but my baby brother! (Ah, Spencer, you know I love you really! Honest!).

In true Army (of that time) tradition, immediately after the birth of his child my Father was posted to his regiment in Germany, leaving us to follow....

I can remember the 60s - but I can assure you I really was there!!

OK, now don't I just live up to the hype? What a cutie!! This is me at about 2 months old, with my maternal grandmother Stella.

~oOo~oOo~oOo~