Bristol

I know from my passport - the second I had possessed - that we left Rhodesia to fly back to England on 21st August 1970. My parents collected us from Heathrow and took us to Hastings, after which we travelled to Gill's home at Cranham, where we spent a couple of weeks while I observed at the local primary school - a requirement of my PGCE course - and we looked for accommodation in Bristol. We found a ground floor flat in Howard Road, in the Clifton area close to the Downs. As somewhere to stay it was acceptable - except that it was terribly damp, hardly ideal for the arrival of a baby.

I was able to walk to the School of Education and Gill found a job serving in a small grocery store. She had finally recovered from her morning sickness, to the extent that we were dancing at a 'hop' at the university the night before the baby arrived.

The car in the picture is the Morris 1100 which Gill's father Don, who knew his cars, had bought on our behalf before we arrived back in the UK.

Brian and Val, our friends from Leek with whom we had had so much fun in our last two years at Keele, had married and moved to Portishead, close to Bristol, so we spent time with them - this picture shows a lunch in our back yard while my parents were visiting.

Gill went in to St Joseph's maternity home in Bristol to have the baby. Elizabeth Anne made her arrival on 1st February 1971 after a long labour, and was duly named after a tea room in Battle, Sussex, which, as a small boy at Glengorse, I used to pass each Sunday on our way to church.

In those days one didn't know the sex of a child before he/she arrived but we were thrilled to have a daughter, particularly as....

....despite the far-from-ideal conditions in the flat, Elizabeth thrived and proved to be a very happy baby. We were given a very smart Silver Cross pram by Gill's sister's sister-in-law, in which Gill would take Lizzie for walks on the Downs. Gill had also made friends at the pre-natal classes, one of whom, Barbara, was particularly supportive.

Despite the cold, damp flat, our memories of Howard Road are happy ones. Amongst other things, Lizzie was introduced to the good things of life at an early age - here Val is feeding her a chocolate.

I didn't enjoy the PGCE course. Perhaps it was that I had already been teaching for three years but I found much of the material self-evident, and I didn't take kindly to the return to writing essays. However, I was fortunate in two things. Through Gill's father, I was able to visit a large number of schools in Gloucestershire where I saw an early example of team-teaching in a primary school, and I was able to develop teaching skills in geology through an arrangement with Bristol's very good Geology Department.

I had one extended teaching practice, at Nailsea School, a comprehensive outside Bristol, where I taught Maths. After my experience of the enthusiasm for learning of the boys in Rhodesia, the ill-discipline appalled me, and I became very stressed. However, the PGCE did have the desired effect as I succeeded in finding a teaching post at Ludlow Grammar School in Shropshire.

With our future more settled, we went to France in the summer of 1971 with my parents and Richard, whose marriage by that time was coming to an end. We stayed at Nougerol in the Dordogne, in a house owned by David and Noel, Noel being my mother's younger sister. It was just what everyone needed, with warm weather, beautiful surroundings, and a copious supply of local wine.