Harrow felt like a very big school with its 11 houses and 650 pupils (Eton is virtually twice the size) but Holmwood House, my Prep school, managed just 65. It had a certain charm, an old house, a family run entreprise with strong moral values, firm discipline and what I suppose would be termed an old fashioned approach to education. It provided a lot of time for sport and like Harrow (the Headmaster Mr Duggan was an Old Harrovian) it also produced plays and in particular Gilbert and Sullivan Operettas such as Pirates of Penzance.
Pupils there had studied Latin since the age of 7 and I arrived having not studied that at all which meant it was a continuous and rather unpleasant struggle. When I arrived they gave me a mock common entrance exam normally taken between 13 and 14 in French in which I scored 98% at the age of 11. The 2% I lost were for mistakes in English. By the time I took the real exam, it was down by nearly 10% as I was forced to try and relearn what was in reality my first language as a second language. Depsite an appalling mark in Latin, I passed the exam and was admitted to Harrow.
2 years at Holmwoood House had been an interesting introduction to being English in an English system. I had made a few friends but in reality looking back I had not really integrated. I preferred the West Mersea sailing crowd and I preferred girls and discovered the joys and pains of love rather early I suppose – I think anyone looking at me in those days would have seen a romantic streak emerging as well as that of a dreamer. If I was not interested in a lesson I would doodle, usually drawing boats, but I never got caught out (in fact there was only one school master in all my years at school who could do that). I did not have a concept of being intelligent at that stage in my life. My father would usually find a way of suggesting that I should have done better, but with hindsight I can now understand that I had a couple of things going for me. I was quite bright and I could write well. Those two things got me through an awful lot over many many years.
I did weekly boarding and full time boarding but disappointingly the experience did not reflect the books I had read and there were few pillow fights or midnight feasts. I did not suffer. The homesickness that many felt, the loneliness of those who could not really make friends was not going to affect me. Africa had prepared me well. I had my dreams and my imagination. And what astounded me was that somehow the school decided I was a worthy pupil. I ended up as Head Boy. And I should thank Mr Duggan for his belief in me which must have helped my confidence in this new but alien environment.
What had progressed was the sailing. I had managed to get a Mirror dinghy, altogether a huge leap up, with its two red sails and pretty blue hull and won my first big cup against all the grown ups and other cadets when I was 12.
And then came Harrow, this British Institution that had educated Byron and Churchill and a host of other historical figures. It was daunting, sat massively on the Hill, with its fanciful uniform which included tail coats and straw hats (never boaters!), its umpteen traditions and 649 new faces. My Housemaster was Mr Venables and in several different ways he was to prove to be both an influence, a roll model and ultimately a helper. I had worked out that the easiest way of getting through school seemed to be to go with the flow, or more accurately to pretend to go with the flow. I have no idea why I developed a belief that I should treat people well, but from somewhere within there was that belief. I did not like nasty people and I did not like bullies. I had a few friends, but one of the wonderful things at that school was that in my first couple of terms I shared a room with two other people, then with one other and then for my last 3 years I had my own room where i could read, play my music, dream, write letters to beautiful girls and generally live in a much nicer world. I avoided the cliques and gangs like the plague and the only reason I did not start to smoke until 18 was because the ‘in crowd’ smoked and I was not going to do what they did. I refused to be a follower. And I think another life long trait had emerged. To this day I prefer to work out my own solutions and not do it by the book, whether we are talking life and philosophy or business.
There were subjects that I did not like, there were teachers that I preferred. But under the old English approach to learning we quickly started to specialise so I could leave science and geography behind and focus on langages, history and English. My French probably got worse in terms of learning it as a foreign language, but luckily it stayed somewhere in the back of my mind and once freed of the constraints of the education system quickly reemerged pretty much undamaged and with an accent that allowed me to be a French person in France. In my first year of A levels, I was yet again taken seriously ill, this time with a form of pneumonia which resulted in my lung filling up and I spent a horribly long time alone in the school sanitorium being filled with anti biotics, the first of which did not work. I don’t remember any visits which seems bizarre, but that is how it was. I do remember being given a cup of coffee at 10 o’clock each day once I was well enough and that was pretty much the highlight of the day. Missing a whole term meant that I could not continue with German as I was too far behind and so I reverted to History and headed into my final year and A levels. This was I suspect a seminal year.
The windows were quite literally barred and I was screaming out for freedom. I felt suffocated in this enclosed monastry of a school, in the institutionalisation of life. My room was a sanctuary and one where my lifetime habit of late nights was developed, whether working , writing letters or listening to music but above all enjoying the freedom and space of solitude. It was when my head was clearest, my mind free and my thoughts could flow.
My father had by now made it very clear that he would only pay for Oxford or Cambridge as they were the only two universities that he rated. But I was in revolt. I saw them as the seamless continuation of Harrow and I wanted to break free. One part of that wish was to escape the education system altogether and my romantic view of life, my imagination pictured the life of a soldier, heroically defending damsels in distress, rescuing them from towers, slaying dragons – well you get the picture. I realise that this must seem totally counter intuitive because most people see the Army as an institution. But I rather missed that bit. I had my own romantic view and it was far more appealing than the career my school careers master suggested, namely shipping, which he had rather unimaginatively derived from my love of sailing. I was lucky to have been taught to drive by a Police driving instructor who happened to be an ex Royal Marine Commando and a real character and this led me to the idea of joining the Royal Marines as they seemed to offer a mix of sea and soldiering. I then discovered that my left eye failed their test so that was no longer an option and strangely led to one of my many moments of not quite getting it right with the hierarchy.
An Admiral turned up for the annual school inspection of the Combined Cadet Force and I was summoned to see him. He informed me that my left eye would not be a barrier to my joining the Navy. To the discomfort of the school hierarchy spectators, I informed him that I had no interest in joining the Navy. Rather surprisingly he persisted and I dug my heels in and explained that the reason that I had wanted to join the Marines was to be a soldier, that the boats that I liked were sailing boats not great big battleships. I won. The Regimental Adjutant of the Grenadier Guards who had accompanied the Admiral must have liked my display of stubbornness for I was invited for an interview and accepted on condition that I passed the Commission Board. This appeared to please my father no end who made a rare visit and told me he would sort out a financial allowance and car for me when I joined……
My main aim in life was to finish school and to escape its walls. I should be fair to Harrow. It had a lot going for it and there is no other boarding school I would have preferred. I loved the description that Eton produced Etonians and Harrow produced individuals. But my free spirited self, born perhaps of that African freedom, felt suffocated apart from those very late hours in the privacy of my own room with my own music. Nevertheless there was this constant pressure that University was where I should go. Oxford and Cambridge were, in my mind, out – they just felt like a few more years at Harrow. And my Housemaster, Mr Venables, probably the only socialist housemaster anywhere, with his infectious love of Camus, his passion for French Cathedral architecture and significantly my French teacher took it upon himself in his own firm way too support me. French and Philosophy were the obvious choices and there were 7 universities that offered that. One was a London University College that had been an all girl one until this very year. I will admit that that appealed no end! But in the end I went for Leeds. It was very well considered academically; it was very big and it had a population of students that was truly mixed and which appealed no end – and it was a long way from all the places I knew and so seemed to offer freedom. But in reality I really just wanted to escape to the army and a life of free adventure.
So it was with some surprise that in early August before the exam results were out I received notification that I was now a Second Lieutenant on probation and the winner of a University Cadetship (there were only 28 of these a year so they were considered pretty special – except to me!). I quickly got on the phone to the Colonel who dealt with our school and explained that there must have been a mistake (another point where I managed to upset the hierarchy). He not too patiently explained that the Army did not make mistakes and that I should be proud and happy to have been hand picked blah blah. Well I was not. So I played my trump card and told him that I had not yet received the results of my A levels so did not yet know if the University had accepted me. And I pointed out that I had rather brilliantly written an essay in my history exam, which while it was superb, was unfortunately about the wrong Swedish King! I thought I had him at my mercy. But his riposte was a winner: “You may not know your results, but we do”. It was then made abundantly clear by both him and the Regiment that my way into the Army would be via a University Cadetship. And at that stage, the meeting with Ana had been written. My third year would be in Paris, at the Lycée Michelet and on 28th November 1971, I would walk into a party in the attic of that lovely old Napoleonic school and see a dark haired beauty sat unknowingly waiting for me to enter her life and spend the next 45 years with her.
A Spanish Girl and Her English Soldier - A Love Beyond Boundaries 