BEHIND "THE EARLY YEARS"

The Years Behind "The Early Years"

In chapter three of 'Home Keeps Moving' (“Nothing Is Weird, Just Different”), I start off by saying "Life was relatively normal during my early years" (heavy emphasis on relatively) and just want to clarify that in fact those years were also very transient.

9 Finsley Walk, UK

I was born in Derby (UK) and lived there for the first year of my life. Clearly, I don't have many memories from this time.

Fåberg, Norway

We moved to Norway a month after I had turned one. My dad got work helping a carpenter in Fåberg (near Lillehamer) which kept us going. My parents actually intended to live in Norway for quite some time (which I only discovered recently)...how different my life (and book) would've turned out!

Holmsted Manor, UK

After being in Norway for just eight months, we moved back to England...this time to a big manor house in West Sussex. My parents were involved in a school with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) so we lived in a flat on the base, with people from all over the world. We lived at Holmsted Manor for eight months but this included a two month trip to Madrid, in which I remember spilling my food tray on the aeroplane floor, aged two!! That was my first flight since we always travelled by ferry to Norway. It was during our spell at Holmsted Manor that Keith Green performed his final concert - to us YWAM children - before his tragic death. He also paid for the swimming pool that we enjoyed tremendously the following summer.

191 Portland Road, UK

After living in the glorious, tranquil English countryside we returned to Derby and moved into a house that I have absolutely no recollection of! My father helped me with the chronology of this entry and I wasn't even aware that I lived at 191 Portland Rd for a few months. My parents worked with YWAM in the Midlands.

5 Mill Hill Road, UK
We then found the house that to this day, remains my longest ever time spent in one house: four years! I have plenty of happy memories of this particular house and season of my life. My nursery and first day of school occurred a stone's throw from Mill Hill Rd.

We travelled lots over these years...attending conferences all over Europe, visiting with family in Scandinavia and enjoying holidays in the Austrian Alps and Cornwall. This is where Chapter Three in the book picks up so I need not say anymore...

My childhood memories are as fragmented as the missing pieces of a puzzle...