Amberheath

I returned to England to my parents home at Three Oaks, a small village just to the north of Hastings. 'Amberheath' had a large garden which my father spent his mornings maintaining, and it was close to a 'halt', a voluntary stop on the Hastings to Ashford railway, which enabled my mother to commute up to London to a job she had with the Association of Unionist Peers, a Conservative group, where she took their minutes and did their typing.

As well as a bedroom each, Richard and I had the use of a large attic room which we filled with African souvenirs - the Masai shield and spears had been a present to my father from the African Mercantile's African staff when he left Mombasa.

Each lunchtime my father walked a hundred yards or so to the Three Oaks Hotel, a pub which, being on a quiet, rural back road, was never particularly busy. I enjoyed accompanying him and, as a result....

....got to know the landlord's family: the young man on the left - sadly, I can't recall his name - was the same age as me and could drive a car, so we spent time together. One Saturday he suggested we go to a dance at the Rye Grammar School, which he had just left having been head boy there.

The head girl had been Gill Rothwell and I was introduced to her at the dance, after which we spent the rest of the evening together. Gill became my first proper girlfriend. Here the local 'halt' came in useful as I could travel by rail to Rye to see Gill.

She was the daughter of the headmaster of the Rye secondary modern and I found I had a fair amount in common with him as he was an examiner for the Cambridge overseas 'O' and 'A' level exams, which the students at Bernard Mizeki took.

Gill had finished her 'A' levels that summer and, in the October, went up to a domestic science college in Manchester, while I set off for the University of Keele in Staffordshire.