Photo: eboat.org: Slipway from East St Helen's Street When we came to England everything changed, but not necessarily for the worse. It was just different. The weather was different. It always seemed to be cloudy and it was never warm enough for a white African. What struck me most, coming from Kenya , were the autumn colours. I fell in love with autumn when it eventually came. We lived in an old five storey house at 61 East St Helen's Street in Abingdon. It was narrow. It had one room on each floor, a damp brick basement and one afternoon the ceiling fell in leaving a black hole. Our teacher at primary school was Mrs Burt. She was about 60. She had triangulated bombs for the RAF. As we sat in the classroom we heard, and sometimes saw, the twin-fuselage aeroplanes maneuver in the sky - Mosquitoes , I think. Mrs Burt lost her temper quickly and once clonked me on the head with a heavy textbook because I couldn't focus. I can still
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head