Category: General

Shortly after we came back from Africa my mother and father had a legal separation with the result that my mother, brother and I were what is today called a single-parent family something rarely heard of in the 30s, when religion and probity were highly respected, and people did not air their problems in the… Continue reading Autobiography, 1930 -39

I write this to draw conclusions about psychological reactions in children, they and their adults are not aware of, but which have damaging long term consequences; not making a criminal, but disadvantaging and imprinting a permanent lack of self-respect on the child. The final paragraphs are extracts from a previous, general comment on my African… Continue reading Africa 1928 – 30, The result of the African experience

Indecent Exposure And The Rest I was in receipt of or witnessed discipline in the severest sense. The business of the witch doctor being arraigned for ritual killing could have been a case in point, but the first instance and the most frightful was to do with ‘indecent exposure’ and, if I had known of… Continue reading Africa 1928 – 30, Life as we lived it in Livingstone

The house we occupied was at the corner of a roadway leading North into the bush. Across the road on the opposite side was the residence of my inseparable friend, Mike. For the two of us, every activity took on the drama of an ‘adventure’. Who was the instigator didn’t matter, the ‘adventure’ was important;… Continue reading The Tank

Our house was on a corner at the junction of two dirt roads and when we were going on trips my father would take the car and set it on the edge of the road, facing downhill, towards the River and the Falls. The servants would then load the car, my parents would get in,… Continue reading Africa 1928 – 30, The car as a battering ram

My father, severely gassed in WW1, had to take up a post with the Colonial Service to be able live in a dry climate. He was sent to Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. My mother had returned in 1922 and I was born and lived for 6 years in South London. In 1928 my mother and… Continue reading The African expeiience part 1 1928

I can understand, but don’t necessarily approve of young children having a piece of blanket that they carry to give themselves security. In my early days I don’t remember children having bits of cloth, rather a heavily damaged soft toy, often a gollywog. The learning curve for a very young child is exceptionally steep. We… Continue reading Things I don’t understand, 7, Modern aesthetics

Over the years I have wasted a considerable amount of sauce, because the jars contain enough sauce for four people, and in those days we were only two. Now I’m living on my own I have had to take steps to save this happening to a greater extent, and as a result I believe the… Continue reading A letter to sauce manufacturers

Natural development. Please understand, I’m not trying to educate you, I am just trying to draw attention to the way that nature has developed systems, which I believe are far from the ability of man. I came in possession of a government pamphlet that describes the working of the ear and the diseases that can… Continue reading Things I don’t understand, 5

The Banker’s handshake On Monday of this week I glance at a headline in the Daily Telegraph, which said a banker had received a £10,000,000 pension. I had not time to read the rest, but that statement set in motion a number of thoughts, and the greatest was that I couldn’t see how he could… Continue reading A miscellany of rants