Above: Marek practising his writing; July 1969, in the dining room at 15 Croft Gardens. Note the radio tuner, old-fashioned telephone (HANwell 8068), the G-Plan coffee table. The clock used to be an integral part of the tiled 1930s fireplace that once gave heat to this room. The 1955 Clean Air Act made London a smokeless zone, our father removed the fireplace and chimney flue to great an extra several square feet of floor space. Marek is wearing 'St. Michael' brand Wynceyette pyjamas. Photo: Bohdan Dembinski.
Above: here he is again, four years earlier, stepping gingerly towards the water. Seaford, August 1965, with our father, Bohdan Dembinski. On the horizon, the first of the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs that lie between Seaford and Eastbourne. Photographer unknown.
Late summer 1969; our last summer at Croft Gardens. We're playing in the lilac tree, our pirate ship, our space centre, our paratrooper-transporting cargo plane, our Himalayan peak. In the distance, the summerhouse, with its corrugated roof.
A beautifully care-free childhood; looking over my father's negatives, I scanned over 60 of them to put together a book for my brother and parents. The memories that the photos brought back were entirely happy ones.
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