John joined our family on 23 rd May 1948. On this Sunday, my dad visited the doctor to have a mole removed. Our local doctor’s wife was looking after a ten day old baby but she had a very bad cold and therefore asked my dad if he could look after the baby for a short time. So, the baby was loaded into his van together with a bucket of nappies, three nightdresses and dad returned home with a baby boy. We named him John. We all loved him so much, he immediately became one of the Stephenson children.

Our parents owned and lived over the local corner shop, which sold everything from groceries to sweets and was also the local post office. Everyone in Saltdean knew John, he used to sit in the pram outside the shop window and was even taken for walks by customers.
John was adventurous from his early days, with tireless energy, never sitting with us on the beach as a baby, always crawling to the water’s edge, then being picked up and returned to the group.

When he was toddler, his adventures took him even further afield. He decided to take off pushing his four wheeled push chair. It had an adjustable a handle which could be lowered to his height. One day he was in the garden with it and he somehow escaped to take the push chair for a walk. He was eventually found by a customer over a mile away, and was then pushed home.

Fortunately, the Stephenson children were quite well known in the area but this was a disadvantage when caught making tunnels in the nearby hay and straw stacks. We found it was possible to move the bales inside the stack and make tunnels.

We used to swim in the sea instead of the local pool to save the money for sweets. John and I had our first bikes together. His was a small, half size green bike. In the summer holidays of 1955, we decided to cycle to Barcombe Mills, some miles away. John’s bike seemed to have magic wheels: he was always miles ahead of me, especially on the route from Rottingdean to Falmer right up over the south downs. I was in big trouble when we got home because John was only seven and we had also raided the kitchen for a picnic and told no one of our proposed trip

We were both members of Brighton Athletic club. In his teenage years we used the running track at Withdean Stadium and ran cross country in Stamner Park. John continued running for years after I left home.

Miss you John.
Valerie (big sister)