Who am I and what am I doing here?

So just what is a 63 year old doing creating a blog....beats the shit out of me.

I certainly don't think my life is interesting or appealing enough to be of any consequence to anyone. I guess it is just away to keep track of where I have been, what I am doing and what I hope to be doing in the future. At 63, if you don't write it down somewhere, you soon forget. I guess too, I would like to leave some sort of trail for my kids and grand kids. So much of our family history is lost because previous generations didn't pass on most of the relevant stuff.

That being said....where do I go from here?

Who Am I?
Colin King. Born in Birmingham England in 1944. Immigrated to Canada with my parents in 1950 to the then wilderness of Scarborough Ontario.

My father was John Raymond King, also born in Birmingham in 1913. He went to school until the ripe old age of 14, and then like most of his generation, started to make his way in the world. He had three brothers, two older, one younger. Norman, Victor and Sydney. Dad was an electrician, having served his apprenticeship while working on the Blackpool Illumination. He went on to Land Rover and during the war (WWII ) worked for Avro building Lancaster bombers. He tried to sign up with the RAF with his younger brother Syd, but because he was considered 'Essential Services' in the aircraft industry, was rejected. Instead he served in Birmingham as a volunteer fireman. Syd went on to fly Bristol Beaufighters out of Biggin Hill and then on to North Africa flying light bombers.



My mother was Francis Clara (aka Claire) Burgess, born in a suburb of Birmingham in 1910. I know very little of her background as a child and young adult. She had an older brother Phillip and a younger sister Barbara.








Early Childhood: We came to Canada more by fluke than by design. My family was all set to immigrate to Australia, but Syd had come to Canada 9 months prior and talked Dad into coming here instead of going there. We landed in Halifax on January 2nd 1950. We crossed the 'big pond' aboard the S.S. Aquitania on her last voyage before being decommissioned. From Halifax we took the train to Toronto. Our first home was The Guild of All Arts in what is now Guildwood Village. It was a great stone bungalow of some 6,000 square feet. How we ended up there is a story in itself and is too long to get into now. After 6 months the bubble burst and we moved, with my Uncle, his wife and daughter to what was the groundskeepers cottage for the Guild Inn. No heat save for a wood stove, no electricity and no running water. Three rooms with Kellog's cardboard boxes flattened out for wall board.

I started school at the ripe old age of 5. We didn't have Kindergarden and stuff like that back in 1950, at least not in Scarborough. My first school was Scarborough Village Public School. With my funny way of dress and British accent, I soon became the target of ridicule and a few bloody noses. I decided it was better to switch than fight so I soon lost my British accent and was in constant battle with my parents to 'dress like the other kids', jeans and PF Flyers etc. I guess in todays world I would have my parents demand my right to be different, have the kids charged with assault based on racial discrimination and drag their parents off to court.

I spent my first two and a half grades at good old SS#7 before we moved to Pickering. So, here the story ends until I get around to the continuation