So there we are. Some memories and stories of my life as a pub kid in the 1950s and 60s.

On the whole, it was a good life. It may have been different from how most grew up, but my brothers and I got used to all the moving around, only seeing our parents at odd times, fending for ourselves and, I guess, growing up fast.

If I’m truthful, we did resent some of it at the time. We missed the trips to the seaside, tea in the garden and seeing our family. We missed having weekends together, family celebrations and holidays in Cornwall. But we were children, and we adapted quickly to being pub kids. It was an exciting time.

We were never without the love and support of our family, who, despite the long hours, managed to spend time with us, listening to us and encouraging us in all that we did. We learned the values of life and what was important and what wasn’t. We had fun, and there was always something going on.

The life we experienced in the pubs certainly helped us later on. For example, we learned at a young age how to handle people and be respectful; what would now be called ‘people skills’.

Our parents had standards and passed them on to us. We were by no means angels, and I’m sure we gave them many headaches. But we were a tight unit because we lived and worked together and held family values so dear.

It’s only as an adult, and maybe a parent yourself, that you look back and realise what your parents did for you. What they gave up and how hard they worked to give you the best life they could. How they loved and cared for you even when you thought they were being hard and unfair.

Sadly, Mum and Dad split up. However, it might have happened anyway: they were married just before the war and spent seven years apart. When they were reunited, they were different people; I guess it just didn’t work. But we were never aware of that.

We could have so easily been spoiled Mum and Dad could have taken the easy way out and bought us things and let us do whatever we wanted. They must have been so tired sometimes and wanted nothing but to put their feet up between sessions, but when we were young, they managed to spend time with us, take us out and attend events at our schools, even if running the pub meant only one of them could come. We were lucky: some of my friends’ parents didn’t have a pub to run, and they never came to anything.

The Claremont was a special place to me. I was 13 when we moved there. It was where I spent my teenage years and transitioned into an adult. I married from there, so I was older and much more aware of what it took to run a pub. It taught me a lot.

It never fails to amaze me that the areas where I used to live have become so up-market, in-demand and expensive. I remember walking home from school with my girlfriend to her home in Islington in the early 60s. Our route would take us around Islington Square. The beautiful Georgian houses then were awful. Derelict almost. Broken windows filled with crumpled newspaper and damp mossy basements that smelled rank! The area was overcrowded and poor. London has improved in some areas but not necessarily in others, and the old problems often remain. It's marvellous to come back and bask in such priceless memories.

I’m very proud to be a pub kid and look back on my childhood with a smile, thankful for the happy memories and rich, rewarding and unusual life I had.

I hope I have managed to evoke some equally warm memories for those who grew up during this time. If you joined post-war London sometime after, or even if you never did, perhaps this window into the past has made you feel closer to grandparents and other people that experienced life in what now feels like a very different time.