The business of being a soldier didn't bring with it too wide a variety of activities. Or perhaps I should examine this statement a little more closely.

I had brought out Roger the Rover with me from Britain, which gave me a certain mobility to travel where I pleased. And it meant that others had to rely on my company for going out to eat at local restaurants for example. When we first took over from the Blues, there was still plenty of winter snow on the ground. And there was skiing at Bad Hertzberg in the Hertz mountains. I had yet to learn how to ski, but I spent a couple of week-ends there. All that surprises me now is that I didn't break a leg - or worse. Army boots are hardly inducive to quick learning. But worse than that, in the absence of any instruction, I had got it into my head that beginners should come straight to grips with the task of shooting headlong down a slope, more or less as if they were tobogganing. I took the inevitable tumbles in my stride, without it occurring to me that such antics should be reserved until a time when I had mastered some control over my skis.

There had also been the shooting competitions for the British Army of the Rhine, shortly after my first arrival in Wolfenbüttel, when I had in fact been picked as the only officer on the Life Guards team. And there had been no favouritism in my earning of that place, which I had won on merit with scores that were consistently high - around the 85 mark. But in the event of the competition itself, I somehow went to pieces, to an extent I even suspected that someone had tampered with my sights - out of revenge, or whatever other motive. But in trying to correct them, I found that I was doing even worse. Then during the lunch break, I was irresponsible enough to anaesthetise my anxieties with gins and tonic - with the result that my aim in the afternoon's Bren gun shooting became both reckless and erratic. My final score was amongst the lowest, which put the whole team to shame. This episode must rank as the final blot upon my record with the Life Guards, before things began to improve for me.

Several months later, during the course of the summer manoeuvres, I was at one time posted on the banks of the Rhine to supervise a life-saving post. (A night crossing of the river was to be staged.) But there was very little for us to do during the days of gradual build up for the crossing, and I had brought my twelve bore shot-gun with me. Not that there had been any opportunities prior to this for using it, since our arrival out in Germany. But this struck me as a suitable opportunity, since we had seen partridges in the fields around us, and I thought I might endeavour to bag some for the pot. So I drove off in a scout-car with a handful of troopers to act as beaters, and we began to drive to one of the open fields where some partridges had been observed to settle.

We flushed them out from the corn stubble, and I got a couple of shots - without actually hitting one. But I had fired just as the covey was approaching a hedge. And to my alarm the hedge suddenly came to life, spewing out from behind it a swarm of high-ranking officers with red-tabbed epaulettes, and their aides. It suddenly dawned upon me that we'd flushed the central order group for the whole river-crossing exercise. So we took flight and legged it back to the scout-car, only just managing to get mobile before a jeep started out in our pursuit. What would have happened to my career if we had been caught, I hesitate to guess. But the scout-car turned out to be faster than the jeep. Or it was on this occasion, with a dragon breathing down our necks.

We had taken over from the Blues their stable of horses and a pack of hounds. There was a coppice or two in the vicinity, amid all those rolling farmlands, but the sight of a fox for hunting was a great rarity. There were quite a number of dedicated huntsmen in the Officers' Mess - with Sunny (the Marquess of) Blandford as our Master of Hounds. He had antagonized the German population of this neighbourhood with a story in the local press how, in the absence of foxes, the Life Guards were hunting the farmers' cats. I wasn't myself a participant within their sport. But I sampled a taste of how the inhabitants of Brunswick were outraged at the Life Guards on the first occasion that I went to visit that city - unwisely dressed in full uniform. A man who saw me approaching along the pavement made a point of barging into me, full frontal, taking me by surprise and thus forcing me to step aside. I have never known for sure whether his action was in response to his having read that piece in the paper, or to some more generalised dislike for the idea of Germany being subject to occupation by the Allied Forces.

The tennis courts in the barracks at Wolfenbüttel were virtually wasted upon me too. I had played it just occasionally at Eton, but without any great proficiency. And it was much the same out here. I preferred to spend my spare time in other pursuits.

Most evenings there was a game of polka being played in the mess, and the habitual gamblers were eager enough to persuade newcomers to play with them - for that is where the highest winnings might be gained. The real problem was that some of the higher subalterns, the captains and the majors, were comparatively wealthy, for it was not unusual that capital had already been passed on to them by their fathers, for the purpose of avoiding the ultimate payment of death duties. And with such funds behind them, they could afford to play for higher stakes than most of us. And they could afford to bluff, and to lose out on bluffing. I tried to match them at their game, with fluctuating success. A run of wins was followed by a run of losses. But when it came to the day of reckoning, the mess steward had to point out to us all that a particular page in the book where our debts had been recorded, had been deliberately removed - the faintest traces of the tear remaining. My run of wins had thus disappeared without remaining record, and I was left with the debts alone in evidence.

It wasn't a vast sum - let us say £50. But it brought me up sharp to reflect upon what I was doing. There was also the realisation that one of the officers with whom I had been playing must be dishonest, if not a thief. And did the thrill of the risks in gambling justify the misery of accumulating debt? After reflection on the whole matter, I decided to eschew such pass-times. Gambling was not right for me. On the balance, I saw more that was negative than positive in its potential for me. So thenceforward, I refrained from participating in their games of polka.

There was no purchase tax to pay on alcohol or cigarettes, when serving with the Rhine army. So it was usual to have a gin and tonic in my hand when sitting in the mess. And I was smoking too over this period, but probably no more than about five cigarettes a day. It's not that I ever managed to enjoy the feeling of smoke in my lungs, but it was such a usual custom at that time. We stopped whatever we might be doing for a smoke break - so along with all the others, I smoked. I would have been left there standing idle, and fidgeting, if I'd chosen to be a non-smoker.

I made good use of the NAAFI's travelling library van, reading for the most part accounts of military valour - as in The Dam Busters, or The White Rabbit. But I was also concerned to hear about a more bohemian way of life, as in the fictionalised biographies of the Impressionist painters: of Van Gogh in Lust for Life, and of Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge. I regarded the life of the soldier, and the life of the artist as being much in contrast to one another, and something that I felt I needed to get sorted out in my mind's eye.

I had brought out my painting equipment with me to Wolfenbüttel, and found time enough to paint just a few pictures - a self-portrait in army uniform being the most notable one. I have given myself a fiercely militaristic expression on my face, which may be indicative of the personality which I vainly hoped might be observed by my Squadron-Leader within my features. I knew that people didn't really see me like that, and it was far more a case of wishful thinking.

There was in fact a great deal of time which I spent in my own room, working on my own devices, for the truth of the matter is that I had never been a really good mixer. The company of my friends was more something which I endeavoured to avoid than to cultivate; and I say this without the slightest intention of being offensive to them. But I seldom felt truly at ease when in the company of others, and my concern was more to establish myself with peace of mind, rather than to scintillate in the entertainment of others - or even to enjoy being entertained by others. I always felt safer when I was in a room on my own.

And the occupation which engrossed me more than any other was in the writing of my first (completed) novel - The Millions and the Mansions. It never got published, and rates as trash when I examine it today. But it was the product of so much labour that it deserves some casual analysis in passing.

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