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  Still we waited. We could hardly bear the suspense. The sister who was seven couldn’t bear it at all. ‘What sort of tobacco do you put in that thing?’ she asked with superb innocence.

  ‘Navy Cut,’ the male lover answered. ‘Player’s Navy Cut. It’s the best there is. These Norwegians use all sorts of disgusting scented tobaccos, but I wouldn’t touch them.’

  ‘I didn’t know they had different tastes,’ the small sister went on.

  ‘Of course they do,’ the manly lover said. ‘All tobaccos are different to the discriminating pipe-smoker. Navy Cut is clean and unadulterated. It’s a man’s smoke.’ The man seemed to go out of his way to use long words like discriminating and unadulterated. We hadn’t the foggiest what they meant.

  The ancient half-sister, fresh from her swim and now clothed in a towel bathrobe, came and sat herself close to her manly lover. Then the two of them started giving each other those silly little glances and soppy smiles that made us all feel sick. They were far too occupied with one another to notice the awful tension that had settled over our group. They didn’t even notice that every face in the crowd was turned towards them. They had sunk once again into their lovers’ world where little children did not exist.

  The sea was calm, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.

  Then all of a sudden, the manly lover let out a piercing scream and his whole body shot four feet into the air. His pipe flew out of his mouth and went clattering over the rocks, and the second scream he gave was so shrill and loud that all the seagulls on the island rose up in alarm. His features were twisted like those of a person undergoing severe torture, and his skin had turned the colour of snow. He began spluttering and choking and spewing and hawking and acting generally like a man with some serious internal injury. He was completely speechless.

  We stared at him, enthralled.

  The ancient half-sister, who must have thought she was about to lose her future husband for ever, was pawing at him and thumping him on the back and crying, ‘Darling! Darling! What’s happening to you? Where does it hurt? Get the boat! Start the engine! We must rush him to a hospital quickly!’ She seemed to have forgotten that there wasn’t a hospital within fifty miles.

  ‘I’ve been poisoned!’ spluttered the manly lover. ‘It’s got into my lungs! It’s in my chest! My chest is on fire! My stomach’s going up in flames!’

  ‘Help me get him into the boat! Quick!’ cried the ancient half-sister, gripping him under the armpits. ‘Don’t just sit there staring! Come and help!’

  ‘No, no, no!’ cried the now not-so-manly lover. ‘Leave me alone! I need air! Give me air!’ He lay back and breathed in deep draughts of splendid Norwegian ocean air, and in another minute or so, he was sitting up again and was on the way to recovery.

  ‘What in the world came over you?’ asked the ancient half-sister, clasping his hands tenderly in hers.

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ he murmured. ‘I simply can’t imagine.’ His face was as still and white as virgin snow and his hands were trembling. ‘There must be a reason for it,’ he added. ‘There’s got to be a reason.’

  ‘I know the reason!’ shouted the seven-year-old sister, screaming with laughter. ‘I know what it was!’

  ‘What was it?’ snapped the ancient one. ‘What have you been up to? Tell me at once!’

  ‘It’s his pipe!’ shouted the small sister, still convulsed with laughter.

  ‘What’s wrong with my pipe?’ said the manly lover.

  ‘You’ve been smoking goat’s tobacco!’ cried the small sister.

  It took a few moments for the full meaning of these words to dawn upon the two lovers, but when it did, and when the terrible anger began to show itself on the manly lover’s face, and when he started to rise slowly and menacingly to his feet, we all sprang up and ran for our lives and jumped off the rocks into the deep water.

  Repton and Shell, 1929–36 (age 13–20)

  Getting dressed for the big school

  When I was twelve, my mother said to me, ‘I’ve entered you for Marlborough and Repton. Which would you like to go to?’

  Both were famous Public Schools, but that was all I knew about them. ‘Repton,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to Repton.’ It was an easier word to say than Marlborough.

  ‘Very well,’ my mother said. ‘You shall go to Repton.’

  We were living in Kent then, in a place called Bexley. Repton was up in the Midlands, near Derby, and some 140 miles away to the north. That was of no consequence. There were plenty of trains. Nobody was taken to school by car in those days. We were put on the train.

  Alfhild, me, Asta, Else and dogs. Tenby.

  I was exactly thirteen in September 1929 when the time came for me to go to Repton. On the day of my departure, I had first of all to get dressed for the part. I had been to London with my mother the week before to buy the school clothes, and I remember how shocked I was when I saw the outfit I was expected to wear.

  ‘I can’t possibly go about in those!’ I cried. ‘Nobody wears things like that!’

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake?’ my mother said to the shop assistant.

  ‘If he’s going to Repton, madam, he must wear these clothes,’ the assistant said firmly.

  And now this amazing fancy-dress was all laid out on my bed waiting to be put on. ‘Put it on,’ my mother said. ‘Hurry up or you’ll miss the train.’

  ‘I’ll look like a complete idiot,’ I said. My mother went out of the room and left me to it. With immense reluctance, I began to dress myself.

  First there was a white shirt with a detachable white collar. This collar was unlike any other collar I had seen. It was as stiff as a piece of perspex. At the front, the stiff points of the collar were bent over to make a pair of wings, and the whole thing was so tall that the points of the wings, as I discovered later, rubbed against the underneath of my chin. It was known as a butterfly collar.

  To attach the butterfly collar to the shirt you needed a back stud and a front stud. I had never been through this rigmarole before. I must do this properly, I told myself. So first I put the back stud into the back of the collar-band of the shirt. Then I tried to attach the back of the collar to the back stud, but the collar was so stiff I couldn’t get the stud through the slit. I decided to soften it with spit. I put the edge of the collar into my mouth and sucked the starch away. It worked. The stud went through the slit and the back of the collar was now attached to the back of the shirt.

  I inserted the front stud into one side of the front of the shirt and slipped the shirt over my head. With the help of a mirror, I now set about pushing the top of the front stud through the first of the two slits in the front of the collar. It wouldn’t go. The slit was so small and stiff and starchy that nothing would go through it. I took the shirt off and put both the front slits of the collar into my mouth and chewed them until they were soft. The starch didn’t taste of anything. I put the shirt back on again and at last I was able to get the front stud through the collar-slits.

  Around the collar but underneath the butterfly wings, I tied a black tie, using an ordinary tie-knot.

  Then came the trousers and the braces. The trousers were black with thin pinstriped grey lines running down them. I buttoned the braces on to the trousers, six buttons in all, then I put on the trousers and adjusted the braces to the correct length by sliding two brass clips up and down.

  I put on a brand new pair of black shoes and laced them up.

  Now for the waistcoat. This was also black and it had twelve buttons down the front and two little waistcoat pockets on either side, one above the other. I put it on and did up the buttons, starting at the top and working down. I was glad I didn’t have to chew each of those button–holes to get the buttons through them.

  All this was bad enough for a boy who had never before worn anything more elaborate than a pair of shorts and a blazer. But the jacket put the lid on it. It wasn’t actually a jacket, it was a sort of tail-coat, and it was withou