Anglo-Colombian School, Bogotá, 1971
It was something that required nerves of steel. One slip-up and I would be in trouble. At the very least it could mean a slap on the face; at worst, a visit to the headmaster’s office. I weighed up the risk – and figured the reward was worth it.
‘You’re crazy,’ my best mate Hernando said. ‘You’ll never manage it.’
That was all the further motivation I needed. I flicked the yo-yo to its full length, flipped my wrist up at just the right moment and dragged the toy back. As planned, it snagged on the skirt of the girl in front, yanking it upwards, before the yo-yo snapped back into my palm.
‘Who was that?!’ The girl turned amid a wailing of laughter from the rest of my mates.
My red face would have given me away, if I’d hung around long enough to be identified as the guilty party. Long before that could happen I ducked out of the way into the crowd of boys, Hernando close behind. ‘Well?’ I said, when we thought we were out of harm’s way. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘It all happened too fast.’
Neither of us had any clue what the girls kept under their skirts but the temptation to find out was almost as overpowering as the urge to play with our new toys when we should be paying attention to our schoolwork.
My teacher, Miss Susan, had a stern instruction for me once we’d filed back into class after our mid-morning break. ‘The headmaster would like to see you.’
I gulped. I’d done it this time. Someone must have given me up. As I trudged down the corridor to his office, the yo-yo burning a hole in my pocket, I contemplated what punishment might await me. What was the sentence for having a toy in school and, worse, using it to torment girls? A letter home to my mother? Expulsion? Both seemed as bad as each other.
‘Phillip, take a seat,’ the headmaster said when I arrived, shaking. His solemn expression gave nothing away, save for the obvious seriousness of the situation. ‘I have to say I am quite sad.’ Oh, no, I thought, he’s going for the guilt trip. I braced myself for the, ‘How you’ve fallen short of the standards expected of me’ lecture. ‘It is a shame to be losing you so soon,’ he went on. I gulped, a bead of sweat trickled down my spine. Surely he wasn’t serious? For one little transgression? ‘However, I dare say you will enjoy your time at your new school. You have made quite an impression in your short time with us and I can safely say our loss will be St Hugh’s gain.’
I didn’t take in much of what was said after that. On one level I was relieved not to be in trouble, but a new school? Whatever could he mean? I was having so much fun and had made lots of friends. Surely there was some mistake. I didn’t say anything to my bodyguards and my parents didn’t let on anything was different when I got home so I put it down to the head teacher being mistaken.
This was no mix-up, however. Little did I know that my father and Gregorio had hatched a secret plan to get me out of Colombia to a boarding school in England, somewhere they believed I would be safe from further kidnap attempts. Their set-up with my natural father might be already bearing fruit but it was an uneasy truce – one that threatened to flare up at any moment. Better to get me out of harm’s way while they still could. Joan was almost as much in the dark as I was. While she knew, of course, of their plans to spirit me away, she remained ignorant of the most recent raid on the house and the likelihood of a repeat.
Not that I was told any of this at the time, of course. Knowing nothing, I kept quiet, hoping that talk of a new school was all a misunderstanding and I could get on with my life. When the term ended my parents told my sister and I that we were going to Florida for Easter and then onto London. We were excited – this meant fun times with Uncle George and Aunt Betty in Boca Raton and, most likely, a trip to the legendary Hamleys toy store when we reached England.
I must have been harbouring a sense of impending doom, however, as by the time we landed in gloomy Heathrow, the weather matched my mood. I was already pining for Florida and the trips to see ‘Uncle Walt’, as Betty called our regular trips to the Disney theme park. I even missed the annoying Vietnam War news updates interrupting our evening’s viewing of The Flintstones. Those fading memories were what kept me going as we sat in the smelly old black cab on our way to May’s – as I viewed her, the old lady with the haunted house. I thought the only thing I had to look forward to, besides a trip into the centre of London at some point, was the food we never got in Colombia. May made delicious bangers, mash and peas and, on Fridays, the tradition was to spread out breadcrumbs in which to dip enormous pieces of egg-coated fish for frying.
One of our parents would usually take either Monique or me into town to do some shopping. When my mother announced one morning that it was me she was taking to the West End I thought it could only mean one thing – Hamleys. I was gutted, therefore, when our cab pulled up outside an imposing shop on nearby Oxford Street, without a toy in sight. Mum dragged me through a flagship outpost of the John Lewis department store, fighting her way through throngs of people. We had to steer our way through obstacles I’d never seen before, such as escalators. I swiftly discovered that jumping on the moving stairway was the easy bit and getting off was another thing altogether. Eventually, we reached an enormous room packed with kids of all ages trying on school uniforms.
Mother led me to a counter, where a cheerful old gentlemen with a tape measure dangling from his neck asked me if I was excited to be going to my new school.
So it was true.
Mother shrugged at having kept it quiet. ‘We’d have never got you in the cab if we’d told you.’
The school uniform department of John Lewis in Oxford Street specialised in catering for the international pupil, and the changing rooms were full of children from all corners of the world. I wondered if they had all been kept in the dark as much as me. As soon as the assistant showed me the pink and grey uniform I would be wearing, I began mourning for the dark green of the Anglo-Colombian School.
‘He’s small for his age,’ the man said as he took my measurements. Again, Mother shrugged. What else were they not telling me?
I did get that trip to nearby Hamleys afterwards, which distracted me from thinking too much about a new school, but Hamleys with Mother meant there was still some tension in the air. While I wanted to look at everything, she would rather I chose the first thing I saw so we could get out of there. What a marked difference it was to when Gregorio would occasionally take me shopping in Bogotá. On those occasions money was no object. I was free to choose something, no matter the price or the size. Whenever I was with Mum or Dad, however, I knew to rein it in. After a lengthy trawl through the various floors I settled on a box of Lego and Mum hastily marched me out of the store before I changed my mind.
I expected us to hail a cab back to Swiss Cottage but, instead, Mum led me down Regent Street to a building with a shiny revolving door. She introduced me to a genial older man standing outside and wearing a bright red coat and large black top hat. As he leant down to say, ‘Hello,’ he reached into his pocket and his white-gloved hand produced an assortment of sweets. I chose one and thanked him. The commissionaire must have known who we were as he swung open the door while he chatted away to Mother. In the sumptuous, marble-clad lobby a smartly dressed lady greeted us. She was about Mother’s age and was very well spoken.
‘Well, young Phillip, how splendid to see you here,’ she said.
Her shiny pearl necklace distracted my gaze but I dutifully shook her hand. I’d met enough grown-ups in formal settings to know how to conduct myself. As she took my hand, Mother told me this was Lady Anne, who worked with my dad.
‘I see you’ve been shopping,’ she said, as we entered the lift. ‘You can open that upstairs if you like.’
When we reached our floor and the doors opened, I had the most unexpected surprise. Dad and Gregorio were waiting to greet me. I couldn’t contain my excitement, diving towards them for hugs. My mood quickly darkened though, as Dad said: ‘What did you think of your new uniform?’
‘I don’t like pink,’ I said, to the amusement of the grown-ups. I couldn’t see what was funny though. ‘Why do I have to go to a new school?’
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ Dad said and I knew the conversation was closed.
After a few minutes, another man emerged through a large, panelled door. He seemed as old as the doorman outside, but more distinguished and a sparkle in his eyes. This was Sir Arthur: everyone called him Gerry. He acknowledged me but seemed to view a child playing with Lego with some bemusement. The adults retreated to Sir Arthur’s office behind the panelled door, leaving me with Lady Anne. She brought me a glass of milk while I played on the large, green leather chair by her desk. She tapped away on her typewriter and answered the phone. I must have sat there for hours before Mother emerged from Sir Arthur’s office alone. There must have been some outstanding business for the men to discuss in private but she took the opportunity to sit with me and explain a little more about my new school.
To my horror, she said I wouldn’t be going home with the family when our holiday ended. I was to remain here in England. My destination was a boarding school and I would be staying there for the entire term. When the school broke up for summer I would go home and see my family again. It was almost too much to take in. I would be leaving my friends and everything I knew in Colombia. No more school runs in the armoured cars, no more mucking around with Hernando. I was devastated.
‘Your father and I think it is for your own good,’ She went on, giving little away to her own feelings. Part of me suspected she quite liked this arrangement, as I often got the feeling I was perhaps more hassle than she’d anticipated. But my dad? Did he really want to send me away? Was it something I had done?
My head was spinning with the implications of this bombshell when the door opened and the men streamed out. Soon we were all heading down towards the lobby. As we made to leave, Gregorio got down to my level. ‘Farewell mi amigo,’ he said, shaking his head slightly. “This is only a temporary home. Your heart will remain in Colombia.’
I didn’t want to say goodbye to don Gregorio. He was my friend. I felt a great sense of attachment to this man who I had grown to trust as my protector. I could however, sense friction, when it came to my welfare, between my adopted mother and Gregorio. They obviously disagreed on the best way to bring me up. He might have signed up to this but I felt on some level he wanted me close to him in Colombia and not thousands of miles away in England.
We had a quiet cab ride back to May’s. Once we got there my parents sat me down and tried to sell the idea to me. It was for my future prospects, they said. The schools in England were infinitely better to the one in Colombia and my education was important. Their words didn’t make it any easier though. I hadn’t realised what all this entailed and it hadn’t dawned on me that I would be away from home for weeks on end. Just the thought of being taken away from all that I knew in Bogotá made me feel that my little world was about to collapse around me. At my age, I would not understand the real reasons for all this commotion, and I was just expected to accept it as if it was a normal part of growing up. I couldn’t understand why I had to stay here when my little sister was going home. It was to get worse, however.
Why, I asked, were people frequently making comments about how small I was? And why were people in my class so much bigger than me?
My parents exchanged looks. Dad cleared his throat and there was a lengthy pause before he spoke. ‘The reason for that,’ he said, ‘is because there was a complication over your exact date of birth.’ What? What was he talking about? Surely they knew the day I was born? ‘When you came to us there was no precise record of your birth.’
I didn’t understand what he was saying. The look on my face must have said it all, for Mother placed a hand on my knee and said to Dad, ‘You better tell him.’ Tell me what?! This was rapidly turning into the worst day ever.
‘We adopted you,’ my dad said, softly. ‘Your mum and I are not your real parents.’
He paused for a moment to let those words sink in, but I could only stare blankly, unable to comprehend what I was hearing.
‘You were in an orphanage when we found you. Your mother had sadly died, not long after you were born and nothing was known about your father. We wanted to give you a home so you came to live with us.’
I wanted to cry but no tears would come. I just sat there, trying to process this information. Astonishingly, on some level, it wasn’t surprising. I had somehow always known I was a bit different. I had always felt my mother was detached in some way from me. Then there was the arrival of my sister, which didn’t strike me as normal.
‘It doesn’t mean we loved you any less. We’ve always looked on you as our own son. We love you as much as if you were our own,’ Dad said. Mum nodded, seemingly content to let him do all the talking.
‘What happened to my real Mum and Dad?’
Mum looked at Dad but he didn’t return her glance. He shrugged. ‘No one really knows for sure what happened to them. All that’s known is that your mum died and so you became an orphan.’
Then the tears came. I’m not sure if I was weeping for the mother I would never know or whether the emotion prompted by hearing this was just too much for me. Once I started welling up it felt impossible to make my tears stop. My poor mother, what had happened to her? And my adoptive family . . . did this mean they had stopped loving me because they were sending me away now? It was all very confusing.
They cuddled me for a while and slowly I calmed down and eventually ran out of tears to cry. ‘So, what does that mean about my birth?’
Dad explained that, when they were applying for my passport, they had made a mistake. At the time, a temporary British passport could only be issued to a child providing they had been adopted for a minimum of five years. According to my official baptism document, I was born in August 1965. Back then it was common to register the birth of an orphan with the local Catholic church charged with the care of the minor. I had been rescued and taken almost immediately to my home via the orphanage. In 1967 I had only been living with them for two years. The paperwork for my adoption had only just started to be processed before we left for England. The simplest solution, Dad said, to allow them to be able to get me a passport straight away, was to adjust my date of birth by three years. If they hadn’t done this our trip to England to obtain my British citizenship would have been delayed considerably and the plans to pack me off to boarding school as early as possible would have been put on hold. No documentation was required; they just had to sign a declaration. At least I now knew why I had been so much smaller than my friends at school in Colombia, even if I didn’t completely understand the logic. This little alteration, however innocent or otherwise at the time, was to have an lasting effect on my life as I was growing up, and particularly at school, where I was always playing catch-up with my much bigger and older class mates.
If I had been bewildered before, it was nothing to how I felt now.
Fearing I might sink into a pit of despair, they suggested taking us to the cinema, where the musical Oliver! was showing. In hindsight it probably wasn’t the best choice of movie. I found myself identifying with the plight of Oliver Twist. Had I been a boy for sale? Was it true that my adoptive parents could love me as much as my real mother might have?
The next three weeks at Swiss Cottage flew by, despite me wanting them to drag out as long as possible. Eventually the day came and it was time to make the trip I had been dreading, to St Hugh’s preparatory school near Faringdon, Oxfordshire. The school had moved to Carswell Manor just after the Second World War. It was such an old building that it was listed in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book. Everything about the place made me feel I was entering the old house in The Addams Family series I had watched on Aunt Betty’s kitchen telly. In a damp, cobwebbed porch, a very serious-looking, thin man welcomed us. He was the headmaster, Mr Young, and he led us up a creaky, black-stained oak staircase. The house and this man gave me the creeps and, when I caught the sound of hundreds of children from the large room that led off the hallway, I pictured the workhouse of Oliver! Was this going to be my life? Begging for scraps to eat? This was a living nightmare.
Mum and Dad had a chat with the headmaster and his deputy, Mr Barnes, but it was all too brief. Soon it was time for them to leave. My whole being seemed to ache with a deep sense of abandonment, standing on the gravel drive. I tried desperately to hold back the tears but the floodgates opened. I felt a pain in my chest so acute it was like my heart had stopped. I was confused about my own identity but was still distraught at watching the only people I could call family fade away into the distance. I already missed them terribly but cursed them for the knowledge they’d dumped on me and for leaving me in this dreadful old place in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home, away from everyone I loved.
A kindly matron gave me a few moments to compose myself and then led me upstairs to the dormitory that was to be my home from now on. For the rest of that afternoon I was inconsolable, as anger, confusion and frustration raged through me. No matter what the matron tried, I refused to do or go anywhere. My mind was in turmoil. Only now was it sinking in what my parents had told me; that I was adopted. Were they still my parents? Did I need to call them anything different? I felt so mixed up. I always thought Dad was my father and yet now I knew there might be someone out there who had a proper claim to that title. Would I ever meet him? If so, what would that mean? What if I didn’t like this person? I wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before, when I didn’t know.
That evening the other kids in my dorm arrived for bath time, which helped a bit and I started emerging from my shell. I resolved, however, not to tell them the truth about my parentage. I didn’t want them to think I was different. I just tried to put it to the back of my mind and it wasn’t long before the antics of my new classmates made me feel a bit better. When I went to bed that night, however, my dreams were plagued by dark images. I had the sense of the young woman in red. She was in pain and crying and there was nothing I could do. There were loud bangs and smoke, and I woke panting, scared and confused. I lay awake most of that night, my imagination running wild, listening to the sounds of other boys moaning or crying in their sleep and the strange noises from the other dorms. By morning, though, I resolved that if I was going to survive in this house of horrors I was going to have to live by my wits.
And so, over the next few weeks, my new life at boarding school became a series of discoveries. Lessons here were of a totally different nature to anything I’d experienced at home in Colombia. At St Hugh’s we had to behave and do as we were told or we would be sent up to Mr Young. In his study he had a worn leather chair near the large window overlooking the playing fields. This, I soon discovered, was the beating chair, over which naughty boys had to bend to have the living daylights thrashed out of them with a hard-wooden hairbrush. As soon as I heard about this, I focused my mind on finding out how far I could push things without ending up in there. Learning how to get what I wanted without getting caught was my new hobby. I quickly developed unparalleled skills in the art of deception and cunning. If I needed to plant evidence of any wrongdoing in other boys’ pockets to divert suspicion away from me then so be it – the threat of Mr Young’s brutal corporal punishment didn’t make my peers and I better behaved, just better at not getting caught.
Despite my newfound skills, the frustration of not getting my way and having strange adults telling me what to do all the time took its toll on my usually pleasant demeanour. I found learning English particularly difficult. It would be safe to say that first term at boarding school was not among the happiest times of my life. There were a few silver linings to this dismally grey cloud, however. In Colombia, football was the number one sport. But at St Hugh’s rugby was the name of the game. I took to it, mainly because it entailed smashing the complete living daylights out of everyone (all perfectly legitimately and within the rules, of course). Boys being boys we treated these rules with a certain lack of respect. As far as I was concerned all rules were there to be broken – provided you didn’t get spotted. Our ref, Mr Snow, was the French teacher and games-master. Clearly, he loved the sport and greatly encouraged us all. He was also someone you didn’t want to cross and he was able to keep us in line while earning our respect. Those early weeks learning the art of the great game of rugby would prove to be my saving activity, all those miles away from home. I was able to channel my pent-up frustration. And, afterwards, following a hot shower and dinner, I found I was able to cope with the otherwise miserable life I found myself in.
The other novel experience of my first term was the sight and the horrendously loud noise of a strange-looking aircraft that flew low overhead from the nearby RAF base Brize Norton at the same time, 3 p.m. every weekday. It was making test flights for the first supersonic passenger jet, Concorde. The pilots swooped so low that they sometimes sent one or two lead-lined windows smashing to the ground.
As I reluctantly settled into life at boarding school, I discovered routine was the key to understanding how the place ran. During the week we shuffled about the school like zombies in a little prison. Mercifully, Sunday afternoons were our free time. As soon as we got the signal we fled as fast as possible to the woods and as far away from the eyes of the headmaster as we could get. We were isolated from the outside world and I started to feel as if the privately educated, English boarder was some sort of tribal species. We forged allegiances and recreated pitched battles we’d seen in cowboy films. Deep in the woods we built camps from sticks and piles of wet leaves and we mounted ferocious defences. With hastily fashioned bows and genuinely sharp arrows, heavily armed patrols were sent out to intercept intruders. Any group of badly camouflaged, enemy fighters would be given the option to immediately surrender. If they refused, a battle would commence until all the ammunition was exhausted. There never seemed to be any victors. I wondered what the matron made of the sudden influx of casualties to the sick bay, all arriving with tales of accidental falls in the woods while ‘treasure-hunting’ or the like. It was a miracle no one was seriously hurt or killed during those Sunday afternoon battles. They helped take our minds off the isolation.
A crash course in decimal currency, which had just come into being in the UK earlier that year, brought that difficult first term to an end. Finally, I was going to be reunited with my family and the promise of another glorious summer holiday in Florida and the chance to return home to Colombia had kept me going. A cousin of mine on my mother’s side called Peter was coming to collect me. We spent a night in his house in Surrey before he delivered me to Heathrow airport the following day. BOAC operated an ‘auntie’ service, where staff helped to get unaccompanied, overseas school children to their parents for the holidays. We were all shepherded into a pen in terminal three while an airhostess meticulously checked all the labels and identities of some thirty, over-excited children destined for all four corners of the globe on different flights. Given how used I was to flying by then it was hard to appreciate that this was a time when children rarely flew anywhere. Transatlantic flights remained the reserve of the privileged few with our designated auntie whizzing us through all the various checking points without having to queue; we were always the first to get on the plane. My flight took in Antigua and Caracas before reaching Colombia and heading on to the eastern side of South America. I was put to the back of the plane with the other unaccompanied children but, while others fidgeted and made a nuisance of themselves with other passengers, I sat contemplating what might await me in Bogotá. In her letters to me, my mother – I still thought of them as my parents, despite their revelations – had made mention of a new house they were going to buy. It seemed that everything was changing.
When we touched down in Antigua, around half the passengers disembarked and our auntie allowed me step onto the boarding stairs to take in some real Caribbean air. I caught a blast of heat that reminded me of Florida. After a short hop to the Venezuelan capital, we finally headed to Bogotá. As we descended over the large mountain range that almost completely encircled the plateau on which the city stood, through the dense tropical cloud cover, I recalled my dad telling me that only the most experienced pilots were permitted to land here. The perilous landscape had caused a few planes to come a cropper over the years. Dad said poverty was so prevalent in the shanty villages on the flight path that any valuables were stripped from the crash sites long before the emergency crews could get there. I thought of how lucky we were to live in relative luxury but then wondered about my own meagre possessions on this flight. A pink, public school uniform would be considered lean pickings should this plane go down.
Fortunately, we landed safely and, as we taxied towards our stand, the pilot apologised for asking the passengers to wait in their seats for a minute in order to allow a VIP passenger to disembark safely. This was my cue. My auntie escorted me forward to the steps and I was greeted by the familiar sound of the siren as our black Chevrolet came into view. As usual, an open-top army jeep, full of soldiers with white MP armbands, followed. The moment the small cavalcade pulled up at the bottom of the steps, Dad jumped out, accompanied by Barandiga. I couldn’t wait any more. Escaping the grip of my stewardess, I ran as fast as I could down the steps.
‘Hey, welcome home,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve missed you.’
After a big hug and a kiss, I jumped in the back. I knew I’d have the seats to myself with all my stuff as Mother didn’t much care for all that driving around with sirens or soldiers. She felt much more at home at the women’s guild afternoon tea party or coffee mornings at the British embassy. Instantly, I felt I was back where I belonged.
Arriving at De La Rue’s headquarters in Avenida de Las Américas, the guards stood to attention and the massive metal gate opened. Gregorio, the customary cigar hanging from his mouth, was waiting to greet me in the reception area. This was a lovely surprise and I stayed for a few hours in Dad’s office talking to his secretary, whose name, Sexta, made me blush. She was unlike any woman I’d ever seen before, much younger than Lady Anne, and stunning in a very short, bright, pinafore dress and massive, multi-coloured striped platform heels and sporting a bouffant hairstyle. She spoke perfect English, Spanish and French and could simultaneously talk on the phone, smoke a cigarette, drink a cup of coffee and listen to the radio while typing a letter at lightning speed.
Having concluded his business meeting with the don, Dad collected me and we made our way home. I was looking forward to renewing the now distant relationship with my little sister and to seeing Otilia and my mother again, but having the privacy of my own bedroom again was what I longed for the most. As we drove home, the reassuring smell of tobacco wafting through from the front of the car, mingling with the scent of the leather upholstery, brought home how fantastic it was to be back home.
For the first few days we fell into the old routine, with Saturdays spent on the golf course and lazy Sundays. The atmosphere changed, however, as Dad broke the news that we were expecting the president. It was only a few days before my birthday, in August 1971 (by then even I had lost track of how old I really was, as compared to the age I was supposed to be). On the afternoon of the visit, we returned home from a long day at the golf club with Chalky (Dad’s James Bond ‘Q’) and Sir Arthur, who had travelled over from London. As we turned in to our street, I noticed a group of soldiers disembarking from an army truck, several police motorbikes and a couple of imposing black cars outside our home. My parents were noticeably apprehensive. They didn’t like these visits. It made them feel uncomfortable when Pastrana’s entourage took over the house. I felt for Otilia, as she always seemed to be on the receiving end of some kind of scolding from my mother on these stressful occasions. As soon as we entered the first floor lounge a loud voice greeted me.
‘Ah, mi amigo don Felipe.’ It was hard, when he was making such a fuss of me, to remember he was the most important politician in the land. ‘Have you been behaving yourself at your new school?’
I nodded and smiled, as his assistants and security personnel milled around in the background with my parents, while Gregorio and the president talked to me. It was as if my parents had been sidelined. Pastrana never stayed very long during his visits, and that too was the case this time. Before he stood up to leave, he leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘I have a special gift for you that you will see in a few days when you go to a particular place.’
Intrigued by what he could mean, I looked to my dad, who just shrugged. I should have known that all would be revealed in good time.
‘Do we have to have our privacy invaded in such dramatic fashion?’ my mother said, when the entourage had swept back out of the house.
‘He is the president of Colombia,’ my dad replied. ‘You don’t have a choice in the matter.’ My mother looked stunned at this response, and it was a shock for me too to see Dad silence her for once.
At times I felt my parents made an odd couple. He was quite maverick at times and also easy-going while she seemed uptight and rigid. She often referred to the Colombian people in an unnecessarily unpleasant manner. The locals were always ‘those people’.
The following day Martinez drove us to what I thought was a farm. In fact, it was the military riding school of Surala, on the outskirts of Bogotá. Members of staff dressed in riding britches and white shirts greeted us with great ceremony, having been warned of our imminent arrival. I was still wondering what was going on as my dad led me to a paddock in which stood a magnificent-looking horse.
‘Your gift from the president.’ I couldn’t believe it. A horse. For me? ‘“Phillip”, in ancient Greek, means “friend of the horses” – so it is very fitting,’ Dad explained.
The horse was mine to name and, continuing the Greek theme, I called him Achilles because he had one white heel. Standing with him was a very tall, thin man in shiny, black, knee-length boots and white riding britches, carrying a whip. Dad explained this was Colonel Savogar of the Colombian army, who was a good friend of De La Rue and would look after Achilles for me.
Savogar had Achilles saddled up and took me for my first little ride on my very own horse. It was the beginning of twice-weekly trips to the riding school for lessons. As I became more at home in the saddle, I loved the feeling of the wind in my face, as we picked up pace and I was able to keep a steady gallop. If I thought that was thrilling, it was nothing compared to the next ride Dad had in store for me.