FULL MARKS FOR TRYING (17 page)

My mother, left, and her sister Dorothy (Aunt Thea) – both looking distinctly apprehensive – with Jacko, their father's pet gibbon; my grandmother and the ayah are behind. The picture was taken in their garden in Madras (Chennai).

 

My father and mother with my half-brother David and my sister Moira – all looking incredibly smart as they stroll on the promenade in Port Said, Suez Canal in 1935. Ships travelling to and from India stopped here briefly; I don't know if the family were on their way home, or going out.

 

At The Homestead, my great-uncle's house in Kotagiri, Nilgiri Hills, in 1947, with Mum and Swaller and Tessa. I have just made my First Communion and am proudly showing off my white dress and veil.

 

Indian summer: in Jabalpur, 1941, with my beloved Ayah-Ma.

 

Having fun in the garden at Landour in 1946 with Simon and Tessa. Tessa seems to be dressed as a pirate? Our smocked dresses don't really go with gumboots, but there were no trousers for girls in those days.

 

At the caves of Ellora and Ajanta in India, 1948, with Dad and Swaller (sitting bolt upright). Tessa and I are looking quiet as we have just had a major ticking-off for fighting.

 

In St-Yrieix-la-Perche during my French exchange in the summer of 1956. My best friend Anne (also doing an exchange) is on the far left; the French friends we were staying with are on the right.

 

Paris, 1957. I took this picture of my fellow students at Mademoiselle Anita's finishing school on an afternoon outing with Mademoiselle Marguerite, our guide and chaperone. We are all about seventeen but look more like thirty.

 

The modest home of my French schoolfriend Daisy de Montesson, who invited me to stay during the Suez Crisis; no wonder I was a tiny bit daunted.

 

This picture was taken for my ‘coming out' by a fellow student of my cousin Prue at Guildford School of Art; my mother commissioned it. The young photographer was Tessa Grimshaw who later, as Tessa Traeger, became world-famous for her work.

 

Sisters, sisters … Tessa and I wearing miniskirts on Prince of Wales Drive, Battersea, 1968; I lived in the building to the left of the picture.

 

My sister Moira and I photographed at Battersea Fun Fair, 1971, by the
Evening Standard
for a piece on us both being women's editors: Moira of
The Times
, me of the
Observer
.