Earliest memories - School

My prep school in Derbyshire……... everything was large. It seemed immense and the whole thing was pretty daunting. I remember driving over there in dad’s jaguar and feeling a bit sick as the warm sun came in through the back window and I was rolling around in the vast leathery seats. I met Ken Wareham the headmaster, and was shown around the school.

There was a steel works in the small town of Darley Dale and I remember hearing the hammer in the factory. I was to hear that regularly for the next 6 years. I was homesick but after the first traumatic term started to settle in and actually really enjoyed my years there. I was in the school football and cricket teams with a spell in the hockey team too but rugby didn’t work for me. I shivered on the wing and got bogged down in the gluey pitch. We seemed to have snow and ice then for most of the winter, perhaps it was because we were quite high up near the Peak District. It was hilly too and we seemed to be constantly on walks. Now I love walking but then the walk represented getting me away from my soldiers and music.