Out of India

My first best friend was in England. I went to St Saviour's Primary School in Ealing, and there I met Doreen. Where I was dark- skinned with dark brown hair and eyes and obviously Indian she was fair as day, with sparkling blue eyes and the most incredible head of tight, golden curls. We were completely inseparable.

She lived with her mum, Aunty Blanche, and cousin Wendy over a shop in the Broadway. Aunty Blanche had skin as white as a ghost, and very black drawn-back hair and black penciled eyebrows. She was prone to fits. Wendy was a redhead with very freckled skin- and could truly be described as spiteful, Perhaps she was jealous of Doreen and me being such good friends. She was always trying to tag along and, as she was a bit older, seemed to delight in getting us to do things which could get us into trouble - like playing "chicken" across the railway line. Nor was she averse to a touch of blackmail which mostly amounted to: "I'll tell your mother on you."

On 4th September 1947, my mother gave birth to her fourth child, a girl. She wrote to us - Indra and had been sent away to a farm at this time - and said she was calling the baby Rosemary. was incredulous. Why Rosemary? She had never mentioned calling her by that name, and as far as I was concerned, it had no glamour whatsoever! "Why not Margaret?" I wrote back. The princesses Elizabeth and Margaret had the status of today's pop stars, though remembering all the famous stars of the time, I would probably have accepted Rita or Bette or Marlene. But Rosemary! It made no sense. So I refused to call her Rosemary, turning it neatly into Romie, which is what she has been called ever since. 

My brother and I had been sent to a farm in the country for missionary children who needed care, while my mother had her baby. At first we were perfectly happy because it was St Julian's Farm, where we had been before, just outside Horsham which was then deepest country. It was where my belief in fairies was at its strongest, so strong that it almost hurt with the intensity. It's where I learned to sing the teasing song:

Terry, you're barmy

You went to join the army, 

You got knocked out

With a bottle of stout,

Terry, you're barmy!

We always had good times there and this was the end of August, so we joined in the harvesting from the hay carts pulled by huge Shire horses, blackberrying, making jam, exploring, playing in the streams. It was the England I adored. They had lots of books, and it was there I discovered Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies, and through her caught many more glimpses of fairies than I would otherwise have done. I also learned to love and adore Little Grey Rabbit.

Then, tragedy. My mother wasn't ready to have us home, and we had to be moved on. We were taken by car along the coast to St Leonards-on-Sea. There was a large family house, in which lived a mother, father and daughter. I don't remember their names, except the daughter's name was Vivian. Sorry to all the really nice Vivians who have this very nice name, but I hated this girl so much that I've never been able to separate the name from her.

She was a tyrant - as were her parents. Because of them, my brother started wetting his bed; we were constantly punished.......