Ah, reading this I recall my favourite thing to do whilst walking home from school – going into our local sweet shop and buying a ‘Jubbly’. Oh, the pleasure of it – walking along and biting the sweet tasting ice! Jubblys are long gone now and so is my childhood, but reading Pete’s blog brought it all back for a few lovely moments. Thanks Pete.

beetleypete

What is it about memory, that makes us remember summers as being better in our youth? Ask most people about the weather, and they will almost always agree that the summer was better when they were young.

Six weeks of unbroken sun, school holidays spent outside, with perhaps the occasional thundery shower, that helped to clear the air. Given that this might span a time period from 1958, to 1998, it cannot really have any basis in fact. Although I do not have the real statistics to hand, (and cannot be bothered to look them up) I am sure that we didn’t always have fabulous summers, with weeks of Mediterranean heat, and unbroken blue skies. So why is it that this is how I remember them?

Before we moved to Kent, when I was fifteen years old, I spent my summers on the streets of Bermondsey, a South London district…

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