It is only in looking back that I can see that another reason for my parent’s decision, was probably to do with me, though I was never told as much. Within a year or so I would be approaching the end of my years at Junior School, which meant that my classmates and I would be sent to a boarding school in Salisbury forty-odd miles away. I suspect that my parents didn’t like this idea, viewing it as breaking up the family. I would be allowed home only on exeat* weekends, maybe once or twice a term.
*when students who live at the school can go home for the weekend (more about exeat)
So, in March or April of 1959, our family packed up and left Darwendale. We drove to Salisbury, where we boarded the train travelling almost non-stop for three days and two nights, winding our way through Bechuanaland (Botswana) and South Africa, to Cape Town, a journey of over 1700 miles.
Once in Cape Town, we boarded a Union Castle Line ship, the SS Windsor, bound for the UK. This time, at least, we were all together for the two-week long trip. I don’t recall much about the voyage, but I do know that my mother, now aware of the Fancy-Dress Parade on board, had kept in our hand luggage costumes which John and I had worn for Darwendale School’s nativity play. John, who had been one of the Three Kings, dressed in a satin blouson doublet with fake jewels on his clothes and on his cardboard crown, now became King Cole. I had been an angel in the school play and remained such on board the ship. I wore a long-sleeved white gown made by my mother from a bed sheet, and the huge wings which my father had fashioned out of coat hangers and mesh, onto which my parents had pinned or sewn countless triangular fabric “feathers”. My halo, made of wire covered in tinsel, was supported above my head by another wire. I loved my outfit. Peter was dressed as a Hawaiian girl in a hula skirt of crêpe paper strips, with crêpe flowers round his head, on his wrists and ankles. I don’t know what he felt about that, but I don’t suppose he had much choice in the matter.
I do have a clear picture in my mind of my mother dressed in a lovely cocktail dress of lemon chiffon, which she wore with a string of fake pearls when she was asked by the captain to sit on the panel judging the Adults’ Fancy-Dress Parade. My mother was a very pretty, lively lady, ideally suited for this role. With her short dark hair, which she wore with a fringe, she looked stunning in her new outfit. I have no idea where she had acquired the dress. Certainly not from Darwendale, where there was nothing but a tiny convenience store. I had never seen her so beautifully attired before. I was very proud of her, and I should imagine my father was, too.
