Mummy and Daddy would spring surprises on me, Edwin and Clare. There was a memorable occasion when a trip in the summer to Lincoln cathedral turned into a surprise trip to Skegness. The sandwiches had been packed and the buckets and spades stowed in the boot whilst we were asleep. The change of direction was quickly grasped by Clare who reading the road signs concluded that all was not as we had previously believed. I never forget Daddy’s comment that he was surprised that we had not realised sooner. We could have spent a lot of our childhoods being suspicious of what we were told since my parents constantly sprang surprises on us, and yet they were really successful on my occasiins to pull the wool over our eyes. There was a surprise trip to see Paddington at the Theatre Royal. I was too young to remember anything about it other than the fact that it was sprung upon us unexpectedly. 
The surprise I remember best of all was a trip to the playhouse to see Dear Ivor, all about Ivor Novello. It was around Christmas because Daddy told us that he was collecting some Christmas cards from the Park in Nottingham and thought we should all come. Edwin was so reluctant to do so that he hid behind the sittee. Anyway they managed to persuade us and we all headed out in the cold, dark night and parked on the square behind the Playhouse. At which point Clare started to get a little anxious. A number of the girls at the High School lived in the Park and she did not want to bump into them when we were just going for a car journey as a family for such a mundane purpose. My parents persuaded us to go to have a look to find out what was on at the playhouse. Clare was mortified that we were going into the Playhouse just before the evening performance. Not one of us worked out what was really going on until Daddy joyfully stated that we might as well stay to watch the performance and casually produced the tickets from his coat. The laughter of that evening is still fresh in my memory as my parents revealed how difficult it had been to surprise us all and come up with an excuse to get us in the car. After that trip Daddy often played the music of Ivor Novello on the piano and I got to know most of the words of his most famous songs. Years later a went to a cinema with a work colleague to see Gosford Park which featured a lot of Ivor Novellôs music. She was amazed that I knew all the words and was singing them to myself. I cannot hear his music without remembering that trip.

i think that there were other surprises sprung on us over the years. Meals out that were sprung on us, like those to the Little Chef - which was a very popular venue for us when travelling around by car but occasionally became the destination because we enjoyed it so much. I think there was at least one surprise trip to Goose fair (which was never a favourite place for my parents in the dark with three young children in a crowded location) but I recall they did surprise a trip there at least once. My parents said that it became more difficult to surprise us as we got older because we were all much more suspicious and much quicker to realise what was happening when a trip to the library in Nottingham turned into a magical exploration of Skills’ toy shop.