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Brian David WilliamsGrowing up in Birmingham, 1935–1946Excerpts from my childhood diary:at home and at Hartfield Crescent Junior School, Acocks Green |
My first diary was for 1943, begun when I was only 7. Alas, I stuck Wills’ Fishes in its pages, then trimmed the cigarette cards to fit the rather narrower diary pages, resulting in fishes with trimmed heads or attenuated tails. It subsequently went for salvage to help the war effort.
| I have recently expanded some of these childhood diary entries, especially those of wartime events, with newspaper reports from the time (thanks to staff at Birmingham reference library for their help) and other reflections. These “retrospective” passages are marked with a coloured bar like this. |
1935
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1940
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1944
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By contrast, the diary for 1947–1953, covering my years at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, is much more extensive and is here on the web, reproduced in its entirety.