Our Boys

My Story (Harry)

Starting this new mini-series based on the backstory's of the family. Also interesting to write in 1st person for once. Hope you enjoy!

HELLOOOO WORLD!!!! It's Harry here!!!

So as part of my summer homework my teacher, Miss Henry, she's very awesome - hi Miss Henry when you're marking this! - so anyway, over the summer my class has to write about their life, it's called a 'Life Story Project'. Miss says it can be as long or short as we want it to, as long as it's clear we've put a lot of effort and thought into it. She says she's very interested to see mine because I'm always talking a lot about my life and my family and she says it sounds really fun!

It is really fun...but like you already know Miss, they haven't always been my family and I guess if I'm to do this properly I have to include everything about my life.

Okay, here we go:

My full name is Harry Olatunji-Minter, but I was born Harry Lewis. At the moment I'm ten years old. I've got blond hair and blue eyes and a really big smile that my papa calls a Cheshire cat grin! I like playing outside loads and playing football with my friends. I also really like exploring and climbing trees and onto roofs. I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was eight and so I can get really hyper and distracted at times, but it's never too bad, especially with medication. I'm also quite accident prone and have broken six bones in my body! Dad always says I treat the A&E ward like a second home! 

Currently I live in West London, or just outside of it, in a house that used to be a farm. It's got horses and everything, it's so sick! I've lived in London most of my life but I was actually born in a place called Guernsey, it's a really tiny island in the English Channel, but I don't remember much about it because I was really small when I left. My mum was quite young when she had me and my dad too, but he died when he was in the army before I was even born. I'm not quite sure how he died but my mum always used to tell me it was from saving someone else. That's why she said I was so brave and fearless, that I got that from him.

When I was a year old my mum moved to London. She wanted to become a writer and she thought she would have a better chance in the city than on an island. We moved into a tiny house cause London is very expensive. It was nice though. There was a park nearby that she used to take me. We would feed the ducks and there were the water sprinklers that I could run through when it was summer! Those are some of my earliest memories, that and the dinners we would always share together.

See that was the thing about my mum, she always loved to share and so we always ate at the same time. She was a really good cook. Especially Italian food! Her lasagne was the best! After that we would wash up the dishes together. I would stand on a really tall stool with washing up gloves and she would fill the bowl with loads of bubbles and put the radio on so we could sing as we washed up. She always had a way to make work seem like fun.

I went to the local nursery and had loads of friends, I'm not even lying, like everybody was my friend and I was always getting invited to play round other kids houses. What all went wrong, eh? Nah, I'm joking, I know I don't have as many friends now but the friends I do have are the real good ones who'll stay my friends for a long time I hope. My mum was my friend too. I know some kids think that calling your parents a friend is weird but that's exactly who she was to me. She was my best friend and I would happily have spent all day and every day with her...

When I was three she started getting this pain in her stomach and upper back. She said it wasn't too bad to start with, but would always get worse when she was lying down. She went to the doctor about it and they said to come back if she got any worse. She said yes but then her own mum, my nan, got sick, like really sick, and so we had to Southampton where she lived to look after her before she died. She died the day before my fourth birthday. I don't remember her very well but I do remember she always used to sneak me five pounds whenever we saw her, and she would wink and tell me it was our little secret. I like it when people tell me secrets, it means they trust me.