My grandmother Enid with her dog Susan (left) in the garden of The Hoppet, where my parents first met. On the eve of war they were married (right) from Water Hall, seen below with my mother’s younger sister Diana in the garden.
My mother made the journey to Africa in a series of low hops in the flying boat Cassiopeia (top). Discovering on her arrival that my father had been called up, she accompanied him (illegally) to Kenya in the station wagon Lucy Lockett, seen here on a makeshift bridge where my mother is washing her face in the river and at breakfast-time in one of their many camps (bottom).
One of my father’s training locations coincided with Baden-Powell’s funeral and he was invited, as a former Scout, to be a pall-bearer. I think he looks very dashing in his KAR uniform, marching next to Lord Erroll (out of step) who was murdered soon after.
To signal landmarks in family life, my mother had the custom of painting big tableaux representing scenes and events. This is a small part of one called ‘The Ways that We Went’, which she did for her Golden Wedding in 1989. Alongside generic African scenes are my father’s armoured car in Somaliland, my mother and me striding into my life together, a sandy Lake Nyasa beach, Hookariah my pet chameleon, Percy our pet bushbaby, and our house at Makwapala with me pushing Sarah in the lorry towards Tui the dachshund.
I evidently looked up to my father from an early age, and accompanied him in climbing the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro.
Baraza kindly tolerated my dogged help in pushing my pram.
Later, we moved to Makwapala in Nyasaland (bottom) where I seem to have grown bored with the sewing class my mother was conducting in the garden. In 1946, on a brief leave, we stayed with my grandparents in England. During this time my uncle Bill and aunt Diana (middle row left, next to my parents) married at Mullion, and the whole family picnicked at Kynance Cove.
On our return to Nyasaland we lived in Lilongwe, where my parents bought Creeping Jenny, our first new car. I was sent to board at the Eagle School in Southern Rhodesia. In the picture here, Tank (the headmaster) is in the centre with Coppers (matron) and Dick (another teacher) on his right. I’m the very small boy third from left in the same row and David Glynn, also small, is in the mirror position the other side, next to Wattie who is next to Paul. David and I collected the beautiful swallowtail butterflies which he mysteriously called ‘Daddy Xmas’.