And so here we were, at the start of a new year, expecting our third child in July (which I had already decided was another girl) and enjoying the safe security of family life in the beautiful outpost of Gibraltar. After the ups and downs of 1976 we both really did just crave some ordinary family time; time when our biggest decisions would be about which beach we should go to at the weekend or what we would eat for dinner. We wanted ordinary family time when we could enjoy life as the beautifully close knit family we had become and even laugh out loud at each other’s funny little ways.
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(Eastern Beach, Gibraltar)

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At the time I think our daughter Tracey had far more funny little ways than the rest of us partly because of her age and the naivety that comes with being a child of 4. Periodically (sometimes because of the heat) I would shave off my beard and one morning I did that before the children got up. When Tracey got up and saw me she said “Daddy where’s your beard?”. Touching my bare face I said “Oh dear I’ve forgotten to put it on, I’ve left it under my pillow”. Immediately she went to our bedroom to try to find it and became quite upset when she couldn’t – it took me a lot of cuddles and explanations to get myself out of that sticky situation! 
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On another occasion when Tracey wanted to do something but was told she couldn’t she pulled the kind of face that looked as though she had eaten a wasp. I don’t remember whether it was Carol or me who said “Tracey, wipe that look off your face” but the next thing we knew was that she was in the bathroom wiping her face with a towel trying to do exactly that. From that incident onwards we were very careful how we worded things – and just so that readers don’t think she was permanently emotionally damaged by such incidents we often talk about them now and laugh at the memories 🙂

(1977 Carol and Sammie. Alameda Gardens, Gibraltar).

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Sammie too was growing into a lovely little child with the kind of curiosity you would expect to see from someone nearly a year old, she was into everything and her eyes were like beacons never missing a trick. She was one of those children who (because of her will power) would always get to where she wanted to go even before she could walk and who never had a problem having her needs met or even getting her own way. Like Tracey she loved the stimulation of going out to the beach or to Alameda Gardens and would always take those opportunities to ‘people watch’ (which is something I think she gets from me – I can sit happily on a park bench for hours doing just that. In fact there was once, but don’t tell anyone, I sat in a doctors surgery waiting room for an hour with nothing wrong with me just to guess what other people had wrong with them). Funny thing genes.
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Evenings and weekends then were often geared around the children as more and more we would venture out to places we hadn’t visited before. Quite a few times we walked through the Rock via a massively long tunnel from (somewhere near Rosia I think) to Sandy Bay/Catalan Bay. Carol wasn’t particularly keen on going through the long tunnel but the children found it quite stimulating and different although walking one way was enough so we’d usually catch a bus home. By now Carol was about 3/4 months pregnant and so the longer walks needed to be scaled down a bit.
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I suppose it’s never a healthy thing to take anything for granted and I’ve now long since stopped doing that. Just at the point we were enjoying family life Carol’s Aunt contacted her to say that since Babs had left him her Father Viv had been seriously hitting the booze big time and the whole family were concerned because he wouldn’t listen to any of them. As Carol looked at me I saved her asking the question and just said “Yes I know love. Book your flight and I’ll ask for leave”.
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