 His birth had been a difficult one, with his mother suffering from pleurisy and pneumonia and John Major requiring several blood transfusions due to an infection, causing permanent scarring to his ankles.The Major family (John, his parents, and his two older sibling Terry and Pat) lived at 260 Longfellow Road, Worcester Park, Surrey, a middle-class area where Major's father ran a garden ornaments business and his mother worked in a local library and as a part-time dance teacher.John Major later described the family's circumstances at this time as being "comfortable but not well off."