Friends

Bob Morris, the drama teacher, became a special friend. He was incredibly laid back, letting all the woes of teaching flow over him. He was a great enthusiast for yoga, and taught it to his student before he began any drama. I vividly remember going in to his classroom to find him balanced on his head on the teacher's desk with his students in various contortions around him. He also enjoyed his ganja.

When his Puerto Rican wife Cynthia came to visit she cut our hair. She worked in the film industry and both she and Bob were involved in 'Papillon'. Sadly, Cynthia met someone else and left Bob, who was devastated.

The Cantons, who lived in No 3 through the first half of our stay in Jamaica, were also very special. Rick's family came from Jamaica so he had adapted to life at Excelsior. So, when he had no money for art materials, he went round builders and builders' merchants begging paint off them, and organised his students to paint the end of the Art block.

Rick painted anything that didn't move fast enough to escape, and some of his creations were beautiful. This is the fridge they had when they lived up in the mountains.

Their eldest, Christian, left and above, was Lizzie's age and her special friend, so she went off with him when they went for a holiday at Negril and to the north coast at Ocho Rios. The rest of us never got to Negril.

Rick was forever doing things, and dragging everyone in - which we loved. So we made kites and flew them on the school field. We painted the gateposts of the five cottages. We made montages out of dyed string. And he showed me how to service our Morris 1100 - he had a mini which was in typically Jamaican dire condition; at one stage he had to replace its floor with an aluminium sheet.

Sadly, Rick's contract terminated in July 1974 so, in true Jamaica style, everyone went to Kingston airport to have a few drinks and see the family off. By that time another couple had joined our circle - Jenny (in the headscarf) and, beyond her, Mike Wiles.

As people left, others arrived. We made great friends of Steve and Sandy New. Steve was in Jamaica doing research on bananas, funded by the British government. Their son Luke is at left on the car, with Ian and Cherry's boy Mark, and Lizzie. We had regular bridge sessions with Sandy and Steve, our play not exactly helped by the quantities of cheap, Jamaican-bottled red wine we drank.

While the adults did their thing, the children were quite safe playing in the area in front of the cottages. This is one of my favourite photographs, of Mark (left), Lizzie and Luke, captioned 'The Three Monkeys'.