Holidays - 2

My concept of a 'holiday' changed completely when I was nine and sent 'home' to Glengorse, a prep school in Sussex. Then, suddenly, a 'holiday' - up until then a month in England every couple of years - became the most important thing in my life - the eight weeks between late July and late September which I spent in Mombasa with my parents. In the years between 1954 and 1961 I spent six summers in East Africa, the other two - to my brother and my disgust - being in England as my parents came 'home' on leave.

It is difficult to describe the abject yearning I had for Mombasa during those eight exile years in England. When I was at Glengorse the misery drove me to cry myself to sleep for several weeks after my return to school, though I did it very secretly for fear of the bullying that would happen if I was found out. In one way I was fortunate: both Glengorse and Bradfield had a policy of keeping the boys as active as possible, particularly through sports, so they were less likely to get into mischief. I couldn't think of home while I was playing football although, judging by the above photo, the same couldn't be said of playing cricket - I'm at top right.

If the summer holidays were spent in paradise the other two, at Christmas and Easter, caused my parents some problems. When I first came to England I spent these holidays with my father's elder brother, Frank, and his wife Grace in their flat in Rivermead Court (above), just by Putney Bridge. So they didn't shoulder the full burden, I would also spent some time with my mother's younger sister, Noel, and her family, also in London.

However, this arrangement couldn't continue once my brother joined me at Glengorse, so my mother found Mrs Groome, a lady who had been widowed during the war and had set up a business looking after children like us. She had a big house near Fareham in Hampshire, bred cocker spaniels, which were fun, and was really very good with us - but I didn't look on the time we spent with her as 'holidays'.