Phil’s father David served in the Royal Marines during the second world war, first as a Lieutenant Colonel, then rising to Colonel. In the photograph he is seated in the middle of the front row with a single marine sitting cross -legged on the ground at his feet.
David Noel Miller was born to Plymouth Bretheren parents and educated at Haileybury School in Hertford. His marriage to Mavis Evelyn Monica Dale, who gained a first at university in 1932, was unusual as both the Plymouth Bretheren and the Catholic Church forbade marriage outside their religions. Here is their wedding photograph.
When David left the Royal Marines he took a position in his uncle’s firm in the Stock Exchange where he rose to become Head of Commodities. He and his family: wife Mavis and their children Stephen and Jane were living at the home of his parents in the borough of Barnet where Phil was born in 1949.
When Phil was six months old, David’s father lent him the money to buy Orchard Cottage – a listed Grade 2 building – in Station Road, Sawbridgeworth, which was conveniently positioned with The Fox pub ten yards away on one side and Sawbridgeworth Station, with trains to London, a hundred yards away on the other. The family moved in and David could be seen on weekday mornings, running for the train clutching his slice of toast. He was on friendly terms with the train drivers who would wait for him if they saw him running.
Phil was the youngest of three children born to Mavis and David. As a small child, Phil was the only child that his father was able to spend good fatherly time with as he had left the Royal Marines by the time Phil was born. David was delighted with his young son and Mavis gladly left many parental duties to him as she had brought up the other two children virtually single handed.
David was a devoted father and looked after his young son with great kindness. If little Phil had a bad dream in the night, it was his Daddy he called for and he remained devoted to his father throughout his childhood and beyond. His mother, as well as being a devout Catholic, held the position of Librarian at the local library and was quite strict compared to David.
Phil was born with a bit of a squint – a lazy eye – and while he was still quite small he went to hospital for corrective surgery. After the operation he had to remain in hospital with a bandage over his eye for more than a week to give it time to heal. He complained a lot that his eye hurt and was very itchy and felt horrible during this time but was told not to make a fuss. One of the nurses at the hospital saw how upset it was making Phil and was extremely kind to him. Phil came to love this nurse. He told me once that he had felt really guilty about this, as he realised he loved her more than he did his own mother.
As it turned out, when the bandages were removed, his eye had gone septic and was full of green puss and he hadn’t been making a fuss over nothing. The operation had gone wrong and would have to be repeated at a later date.
Meanwhile Phil was sent home and given a pair of spectacles to wear to try to make the lazy eye work harder. The lens to his good eye was covered in sticking plaster so he could only see via his lazy eye. Phil hated having to wear these glasses and used to ‘lose’ them on purpose, but however well he lost them, somebody would always find them and he would have to wear them again. Eventually he found the ideal place to lose them. He posted them into the drain in the road outside the house!
David would not give his consent to Phil going back into hospital to have another operation. He said Phil had suffered enough. Phil visited the eye clinic many times after that, doing tests he described as’ trying to put the lion in the cage’ which he was never able to do. Both his eyes were good but he could only use one or the other – but not both together He did not have binocular vision so did not see the world in 3D. This is a ‘brain’ process and has to be formed below a certain age. After that age the brain cannot do it.
This condition didn’t seem to hold Phil back. He enjoyed a lot of sport, especially football and cricket which he was good at. At no point in his life did it seem to have put him at any real disadvantage apart from having a bit of a squint and he was always glad his father has had saved him from going back to hospital for a second dose