Phil,
Did you also learn to swim at the Moseley Rd baths? I loved the place, and if it's still open, that's one thing I'd do for sure, on a visit to the area, and pop in the library
Your growth spurt was amazing, coming so comparatively late. The army accepted me becuse if you were 5'6'' and could walk without flat feet, you were in. I found the army to be the greatest liberator, letting me try and do so many new things in the first years especially, and of course I travelled because of it. There were the other sides to things, as Roy knows better than me - I never got hit - other than a really miniscule fragment that left a minute hole in my upper lip (and soon became home to a top class blackhead!) which is why I've had a moustache for so long.
For our generation, what we ended up doing was so often a matter of chance rather than the ''career planning' of today. But, I accept responsibility for every decision I took, for good or ill, and so I regret nothing other than those I hurt, which I regret deeply.
I don't know about 'rich tapestry' (or limbo of the past) so much as, without setting ourselves up as anything special we ended up ''writing our own books rather than just being chapters or footnotes in others''.