Alex Golding

I first saw the light of day in Holloway, London on 21^st June 1929, although I was not born in the women’s prison! My mother, Sylvia, was the daughter of James Alexander who had been headmaster of Tavistock Grammar School. She was 25 when I appeared on the scene. Sylvia had never had a job or career although she did briefly act in repertory. I think she lived the rest of her life as an actress manqué.

My father, Harold, had served in the trenches with the Bedfordshire Regiment during the First World War. Then, presumably because of the terrible conditions and poor survival prospects, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and flew as a fighter pilot over the Western Front until the end of the war. Then he became a regular officer in the RAF and spent a number of years pacifying the dissident Arab tribesmen in Mesopotamia, using armoured cars and strike aircraft. (Very much what the USAF & RAF are doing in Iraq today.)

Shortly after my birth, a grateful country rewarded Harold with premature retirement from the RAF (under the Geddes axe) although he was allowed to continue as a poorly paid civilian assistant. He was recalled in the Second World War and was bombed by the Luftwaffe when he was administering the RAF hospital at Torquay.

My education was disrupted by the war and I attended several schools in several years, including Plymouth College, Montpellier, Allhallows and Dartington Hall. I left school with matriculation exemption and worked as a hotel management trainee before being conscripted into the army.

I spent four years in the army finishing up as a lieutenant in Royal Signals. Afterwards I served in the Territorial Army as a parachutist and later as a logistics officer in RAOC. I was awarded the Territorial Decoration and finished my service in the unexalted rank of captain.

In 1947, I joined NAAFI as a trainee executive and subsequently worked in various parts of the world including Japan, Jordan, Tripolitania, Germany, Cameroons, Aden and the Arabian Gulf.

Living in Japan was a magical and traumatic experience which deeply affected my subsequent life. My first marriage broke up and through me into a period of turmoil. I rebuilt my life and trained as a chartered secretary. In 1965, NAAFI spent a lot of money sending me to the Administrative Staff College at Henley on Thames. This experience of working with colleagues, who subsequently became captains of industry and commerce, unsettled me and I divorced again shortly after. My broken marriage was followed by redundancy and I was faced with finding a new means of supporting myself and my young daughters Jane & Jocelyn.

Jane was born in Aden and Jocelyn in Germany.

I decided to take up teaching and became a mature student at London University.

written by Alex Golding