My sister Christine was engaged to John Banting and their wedding was planned for 1947, I think. So we all went to England. I was to be bridesmaid, and being the size of a house at that stage in my life, Christine would not believe the measurements she was sent. She was married at the church in Ewhurst and at some time after that, I went to Wycombe Abbey as a boarder. I am not sure of the dates but I did not enjoy boarding school at all, and despite being in the cricket team and a lacrosse team and head of house and meeting up with Marion, who was in the same house as I, over an illicit game of noughts and crosses while we were supposed to be doing our prep, I was heartily glad when the time came to leave. We used to spend our holidays at Ewhurst, with Eleanor and then Audrey acting as our guardians. Several times KT paid for our fares out to Ethiopia and a blissful time was spent at Mulu, despite being the rains. We picnicked every day, often at the freezing swimming pool on the Bomfata stream, despite the 2pm thunderstorm by which one could almost set your clock by, and our holiday job was to prune the plums. We always went down the Mugher to the house first at the Boli site where we made clay pots out of the red rock ground down to sand, Haile made us crumpets which were glorified pancakes made with yeast and we went down the Valley of the Shadow of Death, so called because a small stone apparently supported an massive bit of cliff, on the way down to Marco, one of the coffee plantations. Later on, Mum and Dad made the holiday house at Kusai, mainly I think because water came from a dam on the Alaltu river all the way down the cliff past Kusai to the coffee plantations below. We even had a swimming pool there to splash about in, when it was hot. Getting back up again to the top, was always a problem for me and Dad used to say my face was like the rising sun, coming up over the edge. In later years, I used to ride a mule or horse up, only getting off very rarely. In later years, Michael, never got off because he said he was too frightened to do so.
I don’t remember much about other holiday times in Ewhurst, except that we always had fun. We used to cycle to point to points, occasionally have friends to stay and of course had various cousins around. I think Dick and Ann were engaged during this time, and I remember the excitement of
being allowed away from school for a night (unheard of) to go to the wedding. Mum was in England at some moment during this time. She thought I should follow in her footsteps and go to Girton College in Cambridge but I was no way clever enough and anyway I had decided by then that I wanted to go to Agricultural College, We went down to see Seale Hayne where they had offered me a place but neither Mum nor I were very impressed with it. Girls were second class citizens. I can remember going to the Isle of Wight where Bartie’s mother lived in Egypt Cottage, a charming house looking out over the Solent. The Cowes regatta was on and I was taken by Audrey and Bartie , to the regatta ball. I vividly remember the dress I bought for it – a sort of magenta pink. It was good fun except, as I knew no one, partners were not actually queuing up to dance with me but it was my first real ball and memorable for that. I seem to remember that the Duke of Edinburgh’s aide was some how involved as a potential dancing partner but he was far too important to bother much with an unknown ex school girl. I don’t remember being annoyed. I found him very snooty.
I remember going to see a farm who were prepared to take my on for my farm experience year. It would have meant getting up at about 5am and cycling up a long hill in order to get there in time but I had the option.
However I then went out to Ethiopia and Mulu, for I think it was supposed to be a year and then I found out about Egerton College at Njoro in Kenya and decided that as I wanted to farm at Mulu, it would be a much better place to go to and I could do my practical year at Mulu. So I did and Seale Hayne had to await the next generation.
1948. During this year ,Audrey was out in Ethiopia, acting as Dad’s personal secretary when he was director of the Addis Ababa municipality. She and Bartie met and got engaged that year. Eleanor was also out there ,helping at the English School. Leslie was teaching at the Wingate School and they got engaged and married that year in the English School Hall. It was fun to have a married sister there and I used to join in all the festivities and parties that were held at the Wingate.