Here’s a razorblade, go and play in the road! My brother used to say that was what my mother said to us kids. She never did but I recognized his cry for help when he said this. He felt unloved and uninvolved in the family. I read all about this subject in The Times. Various people were blaming everything in their life to what happened as a child. As you can imagine, the parents took a hammering. They were too self-focused, too interested in work or just plain bored by their children. The worst problems seem to arise where a mother re-marries. The child feels unloved by the stepfather and other children are born, and are seemingly more loved. For certain, the new man who came into my house made our lives a misery; I can understand generation estrangement.

Parenting

Nobody is really taught how to raise kids. You just have a child and learn as you go on. Whinging about parental faults is for losers. None of us is perfect and we all have our peculiarities. If I analyse my childhood, the hardships clearly damaged me. However, the modern kids who get spoiled have it no easier. Firstly, for me the only way was up, things getting better as regular earnings came in. Secondly, I picked on people to copy, mentors, men who had the right attitude to life. They were workmates firstly, and mountaineers after I joined the local mountaineering club. How I loved those men! They were workers too, who also loved the wild country. I soon found that my weak frame was poor for rock climbing but ideal for quickly moving over mountains.

Generation estrangement

If I am honest, I never really lived at home. I was estranged because work on weekdays and mountains at weekends was all that really mattered. Is that peculiar or not? It certainly gave me focus, not least when I went to climb in the Alps on two occasions. Into Europe, as a once poverty stricken kid to spend time with the Swiss. However, all that snow and ice frightened me. I was out of my comfort zone. No matter, the views, the cowbells and the wild flowers overwhelmed me. Nonetheless, a country spoiled by its association with Nazi gold and interest in cuckoo clocks. Back home to reality, wet misty mountains and leaking boots. Pure joy. I stood on the summit of Tryfan and swore that this was how my life would always be. I was nearly right!