Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my Grandparents, William Gilbert and Harriet Gilbert. I was born in the house previously owned by them after the war, in the small village of Moxley, near the town of Darlaston, Wednesbury, Staffordshire (now West Midlands). The same village that my Grandfather was born in, and his Grandfather before him. The house was passed on to my mother Ann Collins and father Desmond Collins, after the birth of their first Grandchild, my sister Jullie in 1963. It is a house that the family still own to this day and will never be sold for many sentimental reasons (not least the fact that it was our Grandparents,and that we scattered our mothers ashes in her beautiful garden just last November, 2003)
My Grandparents moved into a tenancy provided by the school they worked for as joint caretakers from 1963 to their retirement in 1976 - (Loxdale Street J'nr School - Loxdale street, Bilston, Staffordshire).