The Cigarette

This picture was taken in 1957, and it's how I like to remember my parents. The memories of them after they had returned to the UK are coloured by the sense that they should never have returned, that they were at their happiest and most content when they lived in exotic places like Mombasa, Dar-es-Salaam and, in particular, Zanzibar, where they met. My last memories of them, anyway, aren't pleasant - of my father frustrated by the disabilities of old age - like not being able to lift a full glass of bitter to his lips without spilling it - and of my mother growing fat and fey in an old people's home.

This was taken at the Hoey House at Nyali, an elongate bungalow built so all its rooms faced out across the lawn and through the palm trees to the beach, reef and Indian Ocean. From the direction of the sun, it's early in the morning, perhaps ten, and it's either Saturday or Sunday, the days when my father wore shorts though, as can be seen, even on his days off he was always smartly dressed.

However, there are a couple of intriguing details. Firstly, my mother is wearing her slippers and, secondly, she's smoking a cigarette.

As far as I can recall, she only smoked when she was working. I wish I had a picture of her at her typewriter, banging away at the keys at a fearsome rate, with a fag in her mouth and the smoke rising to irritate her eyes, so she typed with them screwed up.

So, when she was invited out for this picture, probably taken by either Richard or I while we were out there for the two precious months of the summer holiday of 1957, she was sitting at her desk in her slippers working at her typewriter, perhaps writing a letter for my father.