We moved to the Springwood Estate, in Allerton, Liverpool, in 1949, when I was two and a half. Initially, it was just my mother (also named Julia), my father, John Albert, known as Bobby, and myself. Jackie, my sister, came along that October.

And, of course, there was John. He was six years older than me, and he didn’t live with us, because Mimi, my mother’s eldest sister, had misappropriated him. She disapproved of a wartime affair my mother had had while married to John’s father, a merchant seaman who was away for years at a time. When my mother fell pregnant as a result, Mimi and Pop, my maternal grandfather, insisted that she give up the child. Later, my mother met my father, and that was the last straw, because they lived together without getting married. So, John went to live with Mimi at her house, Mendips, in May 1946 – she took him to live a morally upright life, to get him away from the sins of his mother.

Our new house was in a big square that you couldn’t see the end of. It was an old council house: two storeys, double-fronted, with a garden at the front, side and back. Everybody had allotments, and we had an air-raid shelter. Downstairs were a larder, a pantry, a large kitchen and two living rooms; upstairs were three bedrooms, a bathroom and a loo.

I had a double room and Jackie had a single. When John stayed, he had Jackie’s room and she came in with me. I spent a lot of time sharing that bed. It was a busy house. The door was never shut, ever. People in and out – everyone but Mimi.

Between August 1949 and April 1950, however, I don’t think John came. In all those months he was only able to see Mummy if Mimi let her in, which was rarely, or if they were all at Nanny’s house, one of my other aunts. While my parents were still living at Penny Lane, Pop’s house, John stayed there at weekends and had a room there. But when Pop died, there was nobody to curb Mimi’s excesses. She actually told John: “Your mother has gone away with that man [my father] and I don’t know where she is.” So, John didn’t know she’d just moved house. Mimi told my mother: “Don’t come here, you upset John. He’s got to settle into his new life.” She turned her away repeatedly.

But Stan, my oldest cousin, who was 16, decided this was all wrong, and brought John, then nine, to Springwood for the first time. We all knew not to tell Mimi. John was a loon for Jackie and me. We thought he was the bee’s knees. Sometimes we’d come home from school and John would be there, in his uniform, talking to my mother, drawing, scribbling, sitting in the garden. Once he started to come, he was there a lot.

As John entered his teens and spent more time with us – by the time he was 14, Mimi had lost control – my mother started to teach him music, and he loved it. She played the piano, the uku-lele, the accordion and the banjo, and was a perfectionist. I can see John so clearly, concentrating intently. Mummy used to stand behind him, and either she’d have her hands on the frets of her banjo, and John would be strumming, or she’d do the strumming and picking, and he’d have his hands on the frets. Then she’d come round in front and make him do the whole thing.

John was bossy. He would take my schoolwork from me and hold it above my head, or stand on a chair, shout out what I’d done and tell me if I had made a spelling mistake. He thought that was hilarious. Mummy used to just leave him to it, so we had to attack him to get the work back. He was bigger and stronger, so he could bat us about, but he could also play with us. As we got older, he would baby-sit.

The night my mother died, John had come round to stay. My mother had gone to Mimi’s. Just after she left there, she was killed by a car, driven by a policeman. It was a summer’s evening in 1958. John was downstairs with my father when the police arrived. But we were asleep in bed, and weren’t told what happened.

My father refused to spend one more night at Springwood. He moved immediately, and we were sent to Scotland. We didn’t find out she had died until about 10 weeks later. We didn’t know we were leaving Springwood for good. We were so happy there. I was living happiness and I didn’t know it wasn’t going to get any better than that.

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