1961 - 62: Zermatt, Kishorn & BAOR Germany

At the beginning of January 1961, before that last holiday in Mombasa, I went on a school skiing trip to Zermatt in Switzerland. We travelled by train and spent about ten days there. Conditions were perfect, with good snow and mostly sunny days. It was the first and only time I have skied. After a term of football I thought I was fit but my muscles killed me. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed both the skiing and the company.

In April 1961 my mother's younger sister, my aunt Noel, took her four children, two of their friends, and me to Scotland. We took the sleeper to Inverness, with the car on the train, and, while Noel drove some to Kishorn the rest of us went by train to Kyle of Lochalsh and were later picked up for the last stage.

Loch Kishorn was stunning. We swam, we built a raft, we roamed the hills, we hiked across the hills to Applecross, we were taken out lamping by the local stalker, we attended a Free Church service. I don't know how my aunt coped with all of us but she gave us a holiday the memories of which....

....returned many years later when Noel came up to live in the small Highland loch-side village to which we had moved in 1996.

All Bradfield pupils had to join the Combined Cadet Force, in the army, navy or airforce. I was in the army section, never enjoyed it, and was only promoted corporal when I became a prefect. At some point in 1962, my last year at Bradfield, a group of us travelled to Herford in Westphalia to experience life with the 7th Signals regiment which was stationed there as part of the British Army of the Rhine. We stayed in the barracks, we accompanied the signallers on exercises - one of which lasted several days in which each of the platoons we were with had to bivouac where they could - we went out on the town. I think the purpose of the trip was to encourage some of us to join the army, the usual route being through Sandhurst. From what I saw of the British army on exercise I thought it was pretty shambolic.