chintz curtains into rooms full of paintings, Turkish rugs, and Dutch  furniture. Here amongst these lovely surroundings Jill would come and  everything had an aura that always seemed full of happiness. Meanwhile Father   came towards the end of my term at Reading and offered me a job in Ceylon to run his small tea Estate in George Steuart’s agency and make a career out there. I leapt at the opportunity as it sounded so exciting,  and in September 1953 boarded the Bibby Line “Worcestershire”  for the three week journey out East. A year later Jill joined me and we were married on January 5th 1955 in the tiny up country Church of Ragalla nestling  amongst the fir trees amid the cool green tea Estates. Our time in Ceylon of about 10 years was  like one long continuous honeymoon in paradise, and we had three children to bless our marriage but like all good things it had to come to an end.  Political  eruptions were rearing their head and our position was becoming so untenable  that we returned to England hoping to farm. But it did not work out.  I eventually got a job in London and three years later started in business on our own. During this time life was a constant slog which without Jill’s unstinting and enduring help , I could never have achieved anything. She was the rock that kept both  the home  and the business functioning through all the boom and busts   of  the “three day week”, the Thatcher Squeeze, the ERM crisis and so on. Now we are retired, still in the same house that we purchased in 1965 and   I still tend the large garden albeit now with a bit of help which is to us both a sea of tranquillity in our latter years.
People often ask  how my childhood in a Japanese Camp during the most formative years of  ones life has affected me. It has in all sorts of  ways mainly in being very adaptable especially with my hands and always being able to “make do” and find a way around a problem.  Also I have an abhorrence of waste in any form, such a food left on plates,  and I  still carefully conserve the soap ends by sticking old pieces together! I have a subconscious suspicion and distrust of people of great wealth who have made their money too quickly by slick means, but instead respect greatly  innovators and creators, and ordinary hard working folk like the many Geordies who from poor backgrounds befriended me.    Loyalty to close  friends  and family are paramount to my being, as well as being straightforwardly blunt  if  these are infringed. More than anything though through all the ups and downs I have been supported by laughter and the funny quirky side of life. Somehow a few drinks with ones buddies and the world is right  and one has nothing to fear. Above all though,  living under such harsh conditions taught me honesty, a principle reinforced  by  Father  a man of absolute integrity, whose  favourite expression was:
“Oh what a tangled web we will weave,
When we first set out to decieve”
His view was that a ‘secretive’ person was a devious person, and one never to be trusted  whereas an ‘open’  person, regardless of their faults who can discuss their problems frankly and openly  are to be cherished  for all time. My life has been full of experiences all over the world,  with hardly a dull moment, some have been good, whilst others some terrifyingly bad,  but because of Japan I never ever  dwell on the past, but instead live for the present day and the future  whatever it may hold. It usually turns out well in the  end, although there can be a lot of bumps along the way.  My Mother was of course a tremendous influence on my life. She was especially at her life’s end a tiny shrunken person physically, but always a towering character with an iron  strength of will, coupled with a great tenderness. Above all she would talk and talk a lot from her vast experience of life. I was lucky to have her around for the first  54 years of my life  especially during the war, and her life overlapped with that of my dear wife Jill, who has always from the moment that I first met her radiated kindness and friendship with every breath  to all around her. Both got on well together and gave our family a great stability in their own ways. May God Bless them both. I have been fortunate since I returned to England  to have lived in  our present house since 1965 . During that time I have with Mother’s and Jill’s encouragement created  a lovely botanic garden, full of the most amazingly exotic trees and shrubs. It is almost  20 years since Mother would walk around with me resting on my arm as she viewed with a critical eye some new development or other that I had made. She is still very much with me in thought and her presence is everywhere, in all that I do, and in the actions I take I can feel her encouragement: “The dead need love as much as do the living because they do not die at the moment that they sink into the grave, but gradually as they sink into oblivion. There should be no difference between the living and the dead if we know how to remember. I am now well into my seventies with every day a bonus……I just hope that this exciting story of how the Second World War touched one youngster, and taught him how to be amazed with each passing day and how to laugh and have fun through it all, may be of some interest to generations that follow.

End of Book Thanks for Reading!