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I can really only remember one or two occasions at the end of our stay in Mombasa when we lived in the Cathedral compound.
It was lovely to be lying in bed at the time of the evening service: hymns sung in unison by hundreds of African men’s voices is a wonderful sound.
Philip and I used to climb trees a lot and I remember a very bad fall I had from a branch of a small tree on to the rocks surrounding the tree below. They gave a very bad cut on my face (which left a scar for many a long year) and being comforted by our large, soft Ayah, but refusing to stop crying until my mother took me over.
When the time came for us to leave Africa there was the excitement of boarding the ship and helping to drag the tin trunk along the passage into the cabin. The weather in the Bay of Biscay was so rough that the hatches were battened down and we had to stay in our cabin. I remember, as I lay in my bunk, watching poor mother trying to wash baby Hugh's bottle in a tiny hand basin and in the smallest amount of water (probably salt) that was swishing around in it.
Then the final excitement of that journey was us all crowding into the dark depths of a horse drawn cab to get to our railway station for Herne Bay.