My sister and I were born within an hour of each other at number 5 Alice Street, Bermondsey, London; at the Bricklayers" Arms end of Tower Bridge Road.
Collins was our surname, but my sister was not baptised Alicia. No, that name would not have existed in our parents" unimaginative survival. She was named Alice after the street, and I was originally named Tom as our mother, Rose, had a very bad period of pregnancy. Tom and d**k being London slang for sick!
Charlie, our father, was at the time of our birth a railway worker. Plying his trade in the sidings of both nearby London Bridge and the goods yard at the Brick, both within a quarter of a mile of our three-bedroomed terraced house backing onto the jam factory. He was, as I understand, an engineer of sorts, but what kind I was never to
