Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

midwife, moving from house to house once an alarm
is sounded and the dilations begin. She notices five
fingers on each hand, five toes on each tiny foot. She
possibly regards the relieved and exhausted mother,
who has been through this twice before. She makes
note of the nervous father, who has been through this
once before himself. Even if it wasn’t their first time,
it was the first child of this particular union, one of
relief and stability after chaos. It would have been
almost impolite not to indicate that there was
something special about the boy.
“He was a lovely looking baby,” Peggy’s younger
sister Patricia Burns (later Antoniou) said, “always
smiling and very placid. He never got into a temper.”
Music seemed to conjure this uniqueness very
early on, which is also distinguishing. “If there was
anything that caught his ear, he would fling himself
about to the music,” Peggy recalled. “We thought he
might be a ballet dancer.”
Life inside 40 Stansfield Road was comfortable
but not exactly musical. A careful lack of
demonstration now seemed the rule for John and
Peggy. Fresh pots of tea were brewed in the
afternoon and meals were frequently heated from
cans of tuna fish and spaghetti; HP sauce was the
only condiment in the cabinet, cod liver oil the only
vitamin enhancement. Evenings were often spent
listening to the wireless radio or quietly reading the
newspapers.
Terry was invited to live with them once he’d
completed his “eleven-plus” school requirements. By