School Holidays in England

At the beginning of the Spring term of 1956 my brother Richard joined me at Glengorse, and in the Autumn term of 1958 I moved to Bradfield College, a public school in Berkshire. My parents felt they had to be in England for these moves, with the result that we did not spend the summer holidays of those two years in Mombasa.

At the end of 1955 my mother travelled to England with Richard by sea, on the Matiana, and my father flew home in time to join us for Christmas, which we spent with my aunt Noel, my mother's sister's family in London - picture above of my cousins Isabella and Michael with Richard and I. My father then flew back to Mombasa but my mother stayed in England until the end of the summer holiday, most of which....

....we spent at a farm near Launceston. Richard and I were devastated at not being in Mombasa for the eight-week holiday. We saw this as our compensation for the miserable months we spent in England. The best we could do was to wear our bush jackets, which my mother must have brought with her.

Once Richard came to Glengorse the various relatives who had shared looking after me during the Christmas and Easter holidays when my parents weren't in England couldn't be expected to look after two of us, so my mother found a lady who had a large house near Fareham in Hampshire who made a living out of looking after children such as us. My mother spent the Easter holiday of 1956 there with us, I suppose to check the place out, and that is where we spent all subsequent Christmas and Easter holidays.

Mrs Groome was kind, and the house, Tanners, was set in miles of open country. We helped with jobs around the property, which included walking the cocker spaniels which she bred - picture shows us with four generations of pedigree spaniels. However, my main memories of holidays at Tanners were that we were bored.

In 1958 my mother felt she needed to be in England again to kit me out for the move to Bradfield. She took a cottage near Appledore in Kent, and we spent the summer holiday there. Richard and I made friends locally and learned to fish for rudd, roach and perch along the Royal Military Canal. As a holiday it was okay but it just wasn't Mombasa.