Home Leave

My parents hadn't been 'home' - that is, to the UK - for years because of the war, and they were fortunate to get away in 1946, on a Harrison Line ship. This was my first experience of England, and of the English and Scottish relatives. The picture shows me with my mother, with Lex Wilson, left, my mother's cousin and always referred to as Cousin Lex, and his wife Nell, right.

Getting back to Dar-es-Salaam wasn't as easy. My father went ahead of us and we had to stay with various relatives until we could get a passage, which we did on a ship called the Malda, on which we had a fairly rough voyage back - and, to add to the fun, the children, of which there were thirty aboard, began to go down with measles.

My father's company gave him home leave every three years, so we were back in the UK in 1949, sailing 'home' on the Llanstefan Castle, after which, once again, we did the round of relatives. My cousin Carolyn is at left, then my mother's mother, holding Richard, then me, my mother's sister Noel, my cousin Michael, and David Wallace, Noel's husband.

On this trip we had to contend with rationing, British beaches in British weather, and with my cousin Carolyn, who thought she owned us. My impression from this, and from subsequent 'home' leaves, was that Britain was cold, grey, poor and miserable.