Tell me about your best friends as a young child.

I had two best friends when I was at primary school in Malawi, besides my cousins. They were RP and LC. We all lived pretty much next door to each other, and our parents were also good friends.

LC lived diagonally to the right of us, and the easiest way to get to their house was over the fence in the bottom corner of the garden. My parents eventually got a step ladder made especially for both sides of the fence, as it was much easier to climb over a ladder than a fence when they’d had a few! I used to sit on our veranda practicing my recorder, and I would hear LC practicing as well!

RP lived at the other bottom corner of the garden. You had to walk behind the servants’ quarters (I’ll explain that another time!), and go through a gate into her garden.

In fact, we were all such good friends that when we left RP’s parents took our Irish setter, and LC’s parents took our two German Shepherds.