I do not think that we were adventurous children. We had a safe home environment, with routines that were fulfilled in a spirit of boredom. But we never enthused about what we were doing, nor sought greatly to enrich the day's eventless schedule.

I think it does need to be stated in this context that our parents never paid any special interest in our adolescent development. We were being raised in a spirit of egocentricity, which increased rather than diminished after Henry's return from North Africa. Each of them then had plenty of their own problems to contend with, and not much heed was given as to whether we might be developing any particular ones of our own. By and large however, at that point in time we were not doing so, for we were reasonably contented, each of us in his own self-centred way of life. But I'll try to furnish a more extensive sketch of the kind of activities which kept me occupied over this period.

I learnt to play draughts, and then graduated to chess quite early while I was at Ludgrove. I was good at both, but there wasn't much interest shown in the game after one had been there a few terms. I never really caught on to the habit of reading novels incidentally, mainly because my reading speed didn't quite match those who were at the same level as me in the school.

Back at Sturford during the holidays, in the malaise of general boredom, all too often there was a feeling of not knowing what to do with ourselves next. Whenever we were left to our own devices, (as indeed was nearly always the case,) we remained uninspired as to how best to use such independence. There was a brief period when we became enthused in the construction of a private `den' in the garden. But even this was an idea lifted from the Cobbold and Crawley families, whom we sometimes used to visit at their grandmother's home of Clarendon Park, near Salisbury.

Anyway we constructed our own den, and I dug a pit in front of the sole entry, which I camouflaged brilliantly with sticks and grass - to discourage adult intrusion. Unfortunately the only adult that we caught was Nanny, who came storming out in a rage one day because we were so late for lunch, falling into the bear trap before heeding our shrill cries of warning. It was a mirthful situation, to which both Chris and myself gave way: not that this was appreciated by Nanny, even though she emerged from the ordeal without any broken bones.

Henry was irked, on his return from Africa, at the way `the boys' now went slouching round the place, with hands thrust deep within our pockets. He criticised us for `lacking the gumption' to find things to do. He also remarked that we seemed to take after Daphne, (whom he identified as a town lady,) in that we had no real addiction to country life. And by this he was really getting at my comparative disinterest in the gamekeeper activities which had so much enthused himself as a boy.

My enthusiasm for rabbiting had indeed waned greatly, although Chris and myself did sometimes go out with Tom Renyard for one thing or another. After my tenth birthday however, he was teaching me to shoot rabbits with his small four-ten shotgun, and that greatly revived my interest in blood sports. But I experienced all the emotional indecision it created in my own mind as to whether to give way to the hunter's joy at a kill, or to the remorse that seemed equally natural to someone who had thus caused the sudden (and unnecessary) extinction of life in some animal or bird which, a few seconds previously, had been a delight to watch.

The killer phase in me was waxing however, and for my eleventh birthday present, my parents gave me a Holland & Holland sixteen bore shotgun. For the remainder of my schooldays, I suppressed all questions as to whether I ought to be indulging in such sports, and was merely attempting to emulate the sort of person that Henry would admire the most - which entailed trying to shoot better (and more blood-thirstily) than any of my contemporaries.

I was in fact presented with this gun at the Christmas prior to my eleventh birthday, when Daphne was busy entertaining at Sturford a bunch of officers which included Rex Whistler, the artist. There was a heavy snowfall that January, and I can remember the pleasure he gave us children in coming out to join in our snowball fights. And his method of thanking Daphne for all the hospitality she had been furnishing for him was to paint my portrait: (one of the last paintings he ever did, since he was killed in action soon after the invasion of Normandy.) But he painted me with sixteen bore shotgun in hand, in what might now be regarded as a somewhat untypical pose.

Rex spent much of his time at Sturford with us in the schoolroom, demonstrating his artistic talent in a variety of ways. He showed us how to draw a face which, when turned upside down, was a completely different face - almost so that you no longer perceived the original one if viewed the other way up. And he did scribble drawings for us too. He would ask one of us to draw a few lines at random, but not just round and round in overlapping circles, and he would then work on these to produce highly animated sketches - usually of eccentric people with, or without animal accompaniment.

This approach to drawing has remained with me to the present day. By that I mean the imprecision of detail that any scribble might initiate, combined with the perception of opportunity, and the chance potential that lurks within any grouping of random lines. It nudged me in the direction of expressionism in art, which Rex himself might have found curious, if he had lived, for his own painting style was hardly to be associated with that particular school.

Artistic talent never proved to be much of an advantage at Ludgrove, in that the school's activities were definitely oriented towards sport, and I remained very average indeed in those fields of enterprise. I enjoyed my cricket better than I did my soccer, where I never did manage to obtain an adequate control of the ball with my feet. But there were also courts for playing squash, and Eton fives, and I did manage to be better than average at the latter. Also at boxing, where I remained constantly amongst those in the running to win all the competitions. I was somehow always better at performing proficiently with my hands, as opposed to my feet, but such proficiency diminished once a bat, or racket needed to be introduced between my hand and the ball.

One of my principal rivals in the boxing ring was [X], who was just a bit older and heavier than myself. In any case his punch was definitely more solid, and contrasted with my own more stylish tactic of frequently stabbing with left jabs to the face. On the two occasions when we both reached the finals in the competition, he in fact emerged as the winner on points, but they were regarded as excellent fights by the sergeant-major who instructed us. And it was our rivalry in this field which brought us together for a while in close friendship: combined with scholastic rivalry over the same period for the top place in Cabbage Reed's division.

We became constant companions over a period of about a year, and it was Cabbage who dubbed us with the affectionate nicknames of Romeo and Juliet. There was nothing overtly homosexual in the relationship, but it was a friendship which had all the traditional bonding of boarding school mutual admiration. The fact that I was deemed to be Juliet (to his Romeo) galled me a bit, but I feel obliged to admit that it would have been ridiculous to have identified us the other way round - if such was the duo after which we had to be named.

My spell of scholastic interest diminished greatly when I rose to the next division, under a different teacher. And this coincided with my emergence, in image, as one of the school's daredevils. This had all started in [A]'s dormitory, where the habit of night-prowling (amongst other things) was encouraged. The kudos was really in the presentation of ourselves as boys who thus demonstrated that we were prepared to risk a `swishing', from this defiance of authority. Those who indulged in such (totally unnecessary and unamusing) activities were, by these acts of daring, mutually encouraged to regard ourselves as future commando, or SAS recruits. And in the sphere of macho development, this was of course not quite so trivial an ambition as it might otherwise sound to be.

Mr Barber however was keeping track of such undesired development, increasing his patrols of the dormitory area, and inflicting the expected swishing upon those who were caught in the act. My friend [B] got caught (and swished,) and for one reason or another, Alan ('Ali') Barber appeared to know exactly whom the as yet unswished night-prowlers might be. I was never in fact caught, and never in fact swished while I was at preparatory school, but he was certainly contemplating such a remedy for me over this period. When [X], who had been given four strokes for some other reason which I don't recall, showed me the bright blue and red weals on his bum, I felt quite nervous about the prospect of such a punishment inflicted by Ali's hand.

Eventually there was a confrontation of sorts - over mistaken suspicions. I had been standing with a ball of plasticine in my hand, and I was going to see if it stuck against the wall, on flinging it there with some force. But just as I was almost in motion to perform this act, in walked Ali who seemed convinced that I had been intent on breaking a window - or something of the kind. So he insisted that I continue with my intent, with himself present. I did as he bade, although he remained far from convinced that I was engaged upon such trivial pursuit as trying to stick a piece of plasticine, by impact upon the wall, especially when such a feat proved impossible. But it was happier for me in getting arrested (so to speak) for such a trivial misdemeanour, which then triggered the homily he had prepared for me in the event of a swishing.

He talked to me actually in sensible vein, questioning the rewards and pleasures from such activities as night- prowling. Wouldn't it be of more value to myself to enjoy the refreshment from a good night's sleep? And what was the purpose in striving to be a daredevil, when in reality I was quite well behaved? Although not all at once, the logic sank home and thereafter, (for some while at least,) I desisted from putting such emphasis upon the need to rebel against authority.