Beaches, Beaches

My mother worked full time, and had commitments in charitable areas as well, but we seemed to go to the beach at every opportunity. Little wonder: the Dar-es-Salaam beaches had white sand and palm trees, were protected from the great waves and the sharks of the Indian ocean by a reef as mile or so out, the water was warm, and, in those days, there were very few of the tourists who crowd them today.

In the album, the above picture has the caption "First Steps", so even that important event in my life happened on a beach.

My father didn't really like beaches - I only have one picture of him in a swimming costume, and he looks uncomfortable in it - but in these early photographs he was frequently there. Here, he is with Richard and I and a model dhow, the traditional cargo ships of the East Coast and Arabia.

The pictures often show us with friends. This raft, called Kon Tiki, was owned by Christopher Hall, who is punting it, with me as his passenger.

The beaches were usually in bays, with headlands between. These were formed of old coral reefs which had been uplifted, and into them the sea had cut rock pools which were filled with sea creatures, places of fascination for a small boy. My mother captioned this picture, "The Fisherman".