My Father's Working Day, 1961

A typical working day in my father's life in Mombasa started on the upstairs veranda, where Saidi would serve the family tea just before the sun came up. While Richard and I joined our parents wearing our kikois, a rectangle of cotton cloth worn like a sarong, and my mother wore a light dressing gown, my father was already dressed because he would then set off for a short but very brisk walk, usually along the roads towards the lighthouse.

After a grapefruit and a fried breakfast with Kenya coffee and toast and marmalade, he would set off in the company's Rover 90 for the office....

....which was at the end of Kilindini Road close to the Kilindini deep-water wharves where his ships were loaded and unloaded.

For work he usually dressed in a white cotton shirt and tie, light-coloured cotton trousers, a lightweight jacket, and leather shoes; he worked Saturday mornings when he would replace the long trousers with a pair of shorts.

If one of 'his' ships was in - this is the Southbank, a Bank Line ship which, amongst other things, was loading live game animals for a British zoo - my father might arrange to pick up the captain, take him to the Sports Club for a couple of drinks and then bring him home for lunch. Sometimes more than one came, in which case lunch might be a lengthy affair. He would then take the captain back to his ship.

If we weren't entertaining, my father would take a short nap in an armchair in the hall. I could never work out why he favoured this chair rather than one of the apparently more comfortable chairs in the sitting room.

He spent the rest of the afternoon at the office. The next stop was, again, the club, for a couple of drinks before coming home for another drink on the downstairs veranda with the family. By this time the sun had set, so we would go through to the dining room for supper. After this, my father would sit in his armchair in the sitting room and read the weekly airmail edition of the Daily Telegraph, usually accompanied by a very 'long' whisky.

The evening ended with the BBC news on the wireless, the presenter's voice waxing and waning against the background static. After the news he went to bed ready for an early start the next day.