The Bells did not ring when I came into the world; the bombs dropping from the German Zeppelins heralded my arrival. I was born at the home of my mother's mother in Wivenhoe Road, Peckham, London, on 6 July 1917, so my birth sign is 'Cancer'. I was named Frederick William Brooks, the same name as my uncle, my father's brother, who was killed in 1915 while serving in the army. At the time my father, John Henry Brooks (1885 -1975) was a non-conformist chaplain in the army and stationed in France, or Belgium, I can't remember which. He was a minister of the Baptist Church for which he was trained at Bristol Baptist College. His first church, from 1913 to 1917, was called Darkhouse and was in the small town of Coseley, West Midlands, not far from Wolverhampton, in what was known as the 'Black Country'. My mother had been a shorthand-typist in her business days. I have one of her notebooks containing some of Father's sermons, written in shorthand, and these are dated during 1915 (Sundays I think).
My father's vocation entailed moving around the country and, naturally, my parents had to take me with them. Shortly after I was born we moved to Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, where we stayed until 1921 and where my sister, Joan Alice was born. When I was small my parents and I visited Coseley and the only thing I can remember about the place is an intermittent red glow in the night sky from nearby steelworks. I visited Coseley for a day in 1991 to see the Darkhouse Baptist Church again.
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