My dad joined the army in 1940, and my mom was left alone with 3 small children. My dad was away for about 3 years before he came home to visit. Then on February 5, 1945, my second oldest brother, David, was born. My dad used to say that if he was around more, he and my mom would have had a football team. When the war was over in 1945, my dad came home for good, and my sister Barb said, "Who is that man!?" My mom had said that if she knew that his attitude was going to be different after the war, then she would never have married him. Eight years after my dad came home from the war, my 3^rd oldest brother, Rick, was born on March 13, 1953.

My Aunt Ivy wrote my parents and asked them to come to Canada, because she was lonely and really needed them around. In May of 1954, my parents and brothers and sisters decided to move from Manchester, England to Canada. The first house that they bought was at 223 Kitchener Road in Scarborough, Ontario. My dad's first job in Canada was working for the City of Scarborough Roads Department. His job was cleaning the drain pipes in the sewers. It was a dirty job, but he needed it to support his family.

I was born on November 22, 1957, in Toronto, Ontario. For the first six months of my life I lived with my birth mother. When I was six months old, my real mom decided that she could not take care of me. In May of 1958, I was taken into the care of the Catholic Children's Aid Society. I was very lucky because the Longfords took me in and gave me a very loving home. When I first came to them they had to feed me every two hours, because at 6 months old, I weighed only eight pounds. I was very underweight. The doctors did not expect me to live.