Crossing the bridge, we entered the Dome. After that, it all became a blur with so many incredible things to see. I remember a robot, like the ones I had seen in comics, but this was real. And there was a computer, occupying, I seem to recall, several large man-height metal cabinets with flashing lights, and it was playing chess against a man. At dusk we ate in a chilly open-air café watching grown-ups dancing outside, ballroom dancing, in overcoats and men all wearing trilby hats, with a backdrop of the Skylon balanced on its needle-point base on fine strands of steel cable against the afterglow sky. The front of the Festival Hall, amazingly all glass in this atomic age architecture, glowed out into the dark.

Home again to Uncle John's London flat for supper of toasted crumpets oozing melted butter; then bed for wondrous dreams. And this was just the start of a week of wonders for John and I as we 'did' London. It was a whirl of Beefeaters and jewelled crowns, of Horse Guards, of pigeons that landed on your hand in Trafalgar Square, of news theatres with continuos film shows or cartoons, and the wondrous science museum with a great never-stopping pendulum from a point high high in the roof and models that actual moved when we pressed buttons. And all the time, there were poached eggs on toast and buns in Lions Corner Houses and those moving stairs in the Underground stations. We used to up and down them several times just for fun until dad and uncle cried "enough!"

Now, with children of my own, I understand. Our child's wonder must have given dad and uncle such deep satisfaction. Two years ago, my father died. There in the bottom of his wardrobe, still deep in grief, I found boxes of a lifetime's snapshots. Among the hundreds of images that kept me spellbound until the early hours of the morning were the 4x4 contact prints on Velox paper of the Festival of Britain week in London.

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