Mike Packwood

Three Cliffs Bay in the Gower. Been here lots of times over the years. When I was small, the Gower was a favourite holiday destination for our family - and travelling from Northampton pre most of the M4, it was quite a trip. I'm pretty sure that three cliffs was the scene of the only abandoned Packwood family holiday. We were in a tent and three days into our two week family summer holiday my mum and dad just gave up. It literally didn't stop raining for the entire time were there, so we packed up and went home. An absolutely beautiful spot though if you're ever down that way.

Like most people my age, holidays as a youngster didn't feature aeroplanes flying off to foreign parts. More often than not they included a tent, or if you were really posh, a caravan. Some of my earliest recollections are of holidays in a static caravan at a windswept site in Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast. I can still smell the smell of the gas lamps been lit. Generally these holidays would have been me, my sister Heather, our mum and her mum. That was it at the time. So, here we have just a few pictures of caravans and cars. I haven't been through mum and dads entire photo archive yet and if any more pics turn up I'll include them later. So for now this is your lot. Me in specs, my mum and my sister Heather, Hunstanton circa 1965 . The car is mums district nurse company car, an Anglia. At the time it was one of only two cars in our street. The other was a Vauxhall Cresta After decades of mostly rubbish British cars Mum and Dad swapped to Datsu...

We're going through all of our parents pictures and documents. They're being posted 'as they come out of the box'. So for the time being are in no particular order. Mums birth certificate 1937 Below: Mums school report 1953 Heaton High School. Newcastle  Below: Mums School report 1954   Above: Mums nurses training end of year presentation program, dated Thursday 6th December 1956 and held at Newcastle General Hospital. By the time of the nurses qualification event in December 1959 mum was married and her surname had changed to Keen. Below: Family Planning Association training certificates from 1974/5 while mum was working at the St Giles St surgery in Northampton  Below: Mums nurses 'practical instruction' logbook from 1956. Below: Qualifying as a District Nurse, July 1964....which came with a free uniform. Below: Becoming a Health Visitor in Northampton  May 1970. 23 hours a week with a salary of £1599 pa. Below: Qualifying to teach Health Visitors   Novem...

We're sorting through all of mum and dads boxes and boxes of photographs....and posting some here for relatives and friends to enjoy. They're being posted 'as they come out of the box' so for the time being won't be in any particular order. Above and below: Mum in March 1951, age 14, pictured with her classmates at Heaton High School. Below: Three pictures of Heather Packwood. at Weston Favell County Primary school circa 1969. Below: Dad. Gordon Arthur Packwood. Earles Barton, circa 1930 (age 5) Below: Mike around 1965, age 3. Probably the beach at Hunstanton, Norfolk. Below: Dads parents on their wedding day. Not sure of date but probably early 20's. Below: Me, Heather, Dad. Probably Wicksteed Park around 1967. Below: Lily Violet Hall. Mums mum. 1903-1976. Taken in 1923. Below: Dad on RAF service. Bombay, India, 1945 Below: Dad and his elder brother Douglas, 1945. Below: Dad on a troop ship returning from India 1946. Below: Dad 1953, age 28 Below: Dad in 1936 a...