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You were physically shielded from the outside world and it created a great sense of community and togetherness. It was fantastic for the initial wave of tenants when they were first built. It’s had quite a spruce-up in the last ten years or so but by the time I was born it had become quite badly run down. It had actually been built on part of the land which formed the old Croydon Airport in the 1930s. But in the years after the war it had become a wasteland and so was developed in the 1960s for social housing. Tell most people you live in Wallington and they will have images of the leafy Surrey stockbroker belt. But Roundshaw was different, a sort of no man’s land sandwiched uneasily between Croydon’souter London urban sprawl and the comfy, middle-class suburbia of Sutton. Even today it has a bad reputation – mainly for drugs and gangs of kids causing trouble. They pulled the high-rise flats down shortly after 2000 and that has improved the place a lot. It had become very shabby and the police were always around, stopping people and asking questions.
    Because it had no main roads running through it, it always felt very secure to me. Yes, there were some hard people living there. But for me it’s always felt safe and I still live there to this day. Even Paul is able to look after himself in his own flat just around the corner.
    My mum moved to Roundshaw from Pimlico with her first husband, Derek, a technician for the London Electricity Board, in 1970. Alan and Paul had already come along and by then my mum was carrying Tony. The flat they had in Pimlico was in a brilliant location. It was on a huge estate called Churchill Gardens, right next to the River Thames, close to Victoria and the West End. But, as was quite common in those days, it was in the name of her mum, and my gran, Gladys. For years my gran worked for the Treasury Solicitors’ office, which was nearby. But now, with two kids and a third on the way, the flat was way too small.
    It was Derek’s mother who first made the move out to Wallington. She had heard about the new estate being built and had managed to secure one of the maisonettes. She urged Mum to do the same but at first my mum was a bitreluctant. She had been told there was an airport nearby and she didn’t fancy the noise of planes taking off and landing . She didn’t realise the airport had been shut for years. Once they saw it, they thought it was perfect for raising a growing family. So they put their name down with the council for a move.
    But the change of scene and the arrival of Tony wasn’t enough to keep my mum and Derek together, and after fifteen years they split up. My mum says it was because they got together and had kids too young. It seems they just drifted apart. He still lives in the area and they are good friends. Soon afterwards my mum was introduced to David, my dad. His nickname, Sammy, had stuck from his army days – apparently there were so many people called David in his regiment that they needed to find a name to distinguish him from all the others. He joined up when he was seventeen. He was sent on tours all around the world and used to tell me stories of fascinating places like Belize and China. I never imagined that when I was older I would serve my country in my own way.
    Judging by some of his stories, my dad must have been super-fit during his time in the army. One day, during his tour to Belize, he was getting pissed in a bar with some of his mates. It had been a long, boozy session and they were totally out of it when the drill sergeant burst in and told them to run a mile there and then. My dad says he was so drunk he could hardly walk and the heat was suffocating . But he had no choice. So he ran the mile. When hecame back the sergeant checked his heart rate. It was basically normal. The sergeant refused to believe he had run anywhere. So he made him run it again. Afterwards he took his heart rate again and the same thing happened. It was as if he