What do you remember about the places you lived when you were a child?

When I was born we lived in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I don’t remember much about it from then, as I was only 3½ when we left.

After my parents got married we moved to Malawi in Central Africa. I don’t remember the move at all. It must have been some shock to a small child, particularly the climate, but I don’t have a clue!

I started school at four in the Reception class, and about the first thing I learnt was a poem called “Little Arabella Miller”.
Little Arabella Miller
Saw a hairy caterpillar
First it crawled upon her mother
Then upon her baby brother
“Ach” said Arabella Miller
“Take away that caterpillar”.

Apparently I came home from school that day and recited the poem in a beautiful South African accent! It didn’t stick though – my accent now is sort of English with a gentle Scottish burr I would say.

Anyway, Malawi was fabulous – the bits I remember anyway! We had friends down on the tea estates, we would go to rock pools at Mulanje (the highest mountain in the country), we went to a swimming pool down where they grew sugar cane – I loved raw sugar cane, and have never had it since. We went to the Lake pretty often too. Lake Malawi is (or was) one of the most unspoilt paradises on earth – a freshwater lake 365 miles long and 52 miles wide. We used to stay at a cottage owned by the tea estate where our friends lived and worked. The beach was golden and it truly was a paradise. We just had to watch out for hippos and crocs; although they didn’t come near the beach during the day, you could hear the hippos on the lawn late at night. I learnt to play darts as a small child at the lake! Also, sometimes when my mum picked me up from school we would go to the club for lunch. We would sit by the pool with our salads or whatever, and as my dad’s office looked out on to the club swimming pool, she would wolf whistle, and he would come down and join us.

School was pretty good too, most of the time. It started at 07.20 and finished at 12.00. As this was normal, I obviously didn’t complain! It wasn’t too far from our house, and occasionally, like when there were petrol shortages, I used to walk to school with my dad and he would carry on to work.

There were a lot of shortages. Petrol shortages were a common occurrence, and you could queue up for hours. Another time we had a toilet roll shortage – god knows what caused that one! Misunderstandings were quite common too, with amusing results! One year at Christmas time, the local supermarket thought it had done a fabulous job with its decorations – Christmas tree, chains across the ceiling etc. The problem was that the chains, rather than being normal paper chains, were made out of sanitary towels, as were the baubles on the tree!

On Christmas day, every year, we had local dancers on the front lawn. I presume they went to every house hoping for some food or something – I didn’t pay much attention to the details only being small, but it was amazing to see them doing their tribal dance.

We eventually left due to a variety of circumstances, two being my dad’s contract ending, and the fact that we had been burgled four times in four months, the last time resulting in the dogs being drugged with sleeping pills. It was becoming a place where it was no longer very safe to live. I’m glad we left when we did, as I think it would have become harder and harder, and all the things that we loved about the country were slowly disappearing.

From there we moved to Scotland when I was nine. We had been home on leave in 1983 and visited friends in Scotland. My mum and dad fell in love with the place, and bought a house there. We rented it out while my dad finished his final contract, and finally moved back in 1986. I went to several different schools there – which no doubt will be expanded on later.

I loved Scotland. I spent most of my life there. It’s hard to explain, except that it is part of my soul. A Celt anyway (the family originally comes from Devon, Ireland and Somerset - according to the research I have done), it appealed to me in a way that nowhere else ever has. Where we lived was very pretty, rolling hills, very very green land, lots of sheep and cows, and beautiful lochs. But if you drove just half an hour up the road towards Edinburgh the scenery became majestic and awe inspiring. Add to that, the pure, clean air and total lack of pollution in the country areas, and some of the most beautiful cities in the British Isles – it’s no wonder it is one of the most beautiful and loved countries in the world.

And now France. But that’s for another post.