Leaving Home

The spell of really quite sunny weather finally gave up on us today, returning us to winter, with snow on the bens and sleet at sea level. This morning's walk, up into the forestry at the back of our house, was a fairly dismal affair with very little to see, but the damp cold led me to think about my experience of the winter of January 1954. This was the month in which I flew to England for my first term at Glengorse, a prep school in the Sussex countryside.

I know I was still in Mombasa on my birthday, 2nd January, as I can remember crying most of the way through my party having recently been told that I would be leaving for England in the next few days, but what I didn't know was the date on which I actually left.

My passport should have given me the answer as each time I flew in and out of countries it was stamped with....

....the exit and entry dates, but nowhere could I find a date in January 1954.

I finally found it, not where it should have been in the body of the passport but on page 4, which had details of the issue and re-issue of the passport. It's barely visible, at bottom right....

....but it gave me the departure date from Nairobi as 9th January 1954. This means I probably left Mombasa on either 7th or 8th.

None of this detail really matters except that it gives the bald facts behind what must have been a traumatic event, leaving my family and the warmth and sunshine of my home for school in a British winter probably not unlike this one.