Tony's Life and Times

Russ landed a job as a lecturer in Dentistry at a University in Singapore rather than joining us in England, so we all bundled off into yet another liner, and headed off to Singapore to join him there. The trip was only memorable for two things, as we were passing through the Bay of Biscay we encountered the worst storm for years.... I can remember standing at the window of the kid's play room which was at the front of the superstructure of this large vessel (about 30 000 tons) and seeing the bows disappearing into the huge waves, and the crash as the sea hit the window I was standing at about half way along the vessel. And feeling the entire ship juddering as its propellers came out of the water as we passed through the huge waves... Very impressive storm which actually I enjoyed, as I am lucky enough not to suffer from sea sickness I am happy to report. The other thing that I remember was going to sleep in our cabin, having locked the door from the inside, so...

I have never been sure why this happened, but when I was about 8 it was decided that my mother, sister, brother and I would return to Britain, Russ staying on behind to sell his practice and the plan was to join us later. At the time I didn't really think about it much, merely accepted it, as kids seem to do, but much later I came to the conclusion that actually my mother was leaving Russ as she hated Australia so much, and simply had to get the hell away from the place, no matter what the cost to her marriage. So off we went, yet another huge ocean liner, across the equator again (but thanks to my well guarded certificate with no problems for me) and back to England, where we settled in a small house in Chalk Farm in London and I was sent to a totally insane school just up the road which was a bad copy of Summer Hill School. In this school kids only had to go to lessons they wanted to, and teachers seemed free to teach anything they felt moved to teach, so the o...

My next memory is of our departure by boat to Australia, I must have been about 5 years old I think. I still have a strong memory of the paper streamers that people on the boat used to throw down to their friends and family below on the shore, so that a sort of symbolic last contact was created. Actually a very sad thing to do, since in those days when people went off to somewhere like Australia they were highly unlikely to return, so in all probability this was the last tangible contact they had with each other. The moment when the streamers broke was something I will always remember with sadness..... I made a number of long sea voyages as a kid, so I went through this sad ceremony a number of times. I have a number of confused memories of that trip:- Being told and believing that dates were packed into their boxes by Arabs trampling them in with their bare feet and being horrified by this when I saw the dirty bare feet of those Arabs in Egypt as we stopped at both end...

Over the years many people have asked me to write an account of my life and times – a plea that up till now I have ignored. But as it is raining this afternoon, I thought “what the hell” and have sat down in front of my computer to see what I can make of it all. This wont be an any real sense a “narrative” autobiography, more a series of impressions, events and sketches of events arranged in more or less chronological order of my life so far (I am now 71 years old). Up to now it has been a very varied, enjoyable and for me at least, entertaining life for the most part. So far I have managed to live in something like 11 different countries and had a pretty wide range of professions, all (well most of them) totally enjoyable and I continue to find life both fun and an interesting challenge. And plan to stay as long as I can to see what comes next. The beginning in Britain: So I shall begin at the beginning, seems a good place to start. For me this was on 28 th ...