Edward Enfield - An Eastern Odyssey: The Early Adventures of Edward Enfield

Edward Enfield 2016

Edward Enfield has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016.

ISBN - 978-1530741625

This edition published by The Odyssey Press Ltd, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016.

The Old and Infirm have at least this Privilege, that they can recall to their Minds those Scenes of Joy in which they once delighted, and ruminate over their past Pleasures, with a Satisfaction almost equal to the first Enjoyment. The Amusements of our Youth are the Boast and Comfort of our declining Years.

From the Preface to The Chase by William Somerville, (1675-1742) published 1735

This is mainly an account of my life in the East sixty years ago, when Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony, when the Japanese had little idea of how to make motor cars and Thailand was a country to which no-one went on holiday. Who am I, you may ask, to have the temerity to write what is undeniably autobiography? I can only say that having cycled in France and Greece, Ireland and Germany, and written books about that, I thought that something on the same lines about my Eastern adventures might be acceptable. There are not many of us left who have ridden as amateur jockeys in Hong Kong or been friends with the war-time commandant of the Bangkok prison camp. Those were interesting times, and they deserve to be recorded. To such reminiscences I have prefixed some glimpses of my earlier life as a schoolboy, as an undergraduate at an Oxford quite different from the Oxford of today, and as an inefficient officer in a cavalry regiment. I hope this might revive memories of past times in some, and perhaps cause an occasional smile to them and others.

I was born on 3rd September 1929 in Hampstead, at 48 Downshire Hill, or possibly 44. I am not sure which, as I was very young at the time.

I have one sister called Clarissa who is nearly 6 years older than me. I could not say Clarissa and I called her Dissa, and this name has stuck to her so she is always called Dissa in the family. A man called Noel Iliffe, who was a BBC producer, once asked if it was short for Disappointment but this was just his joke. She was never a disappointment to me but I was rather a nuisance to her, as she was made to take me to Hampstead Heath and to the Round Pond to feed the ducks when she would rather have been playing with her friends.

Next door to us in Downshire Hill there was a lady called Mrs Carline and two girls called Unity and Shireen. Their name was not Carline but Spencer as they were the daughters of Stanley Spencer, the famous painter, and I think Mrs Carline was their grandmother. They were quite nice in spite of their strange names and used to come and play in our house, and I in theirs.

Unity, Shireen and I were all sent to the Montessori School in Hampstead where I pointed out to one of the teachers that a notice board had the word DOG spelt backwards. She asked me if I knew what it was spelt forwards and I said I didnt, but I did. I just thought God was someone you did not talk about. I did not learn much at the Montessori School. My mother once asked how I was getting on and they said Edward is too busy showing off to the girls to have time for anything else. So then they sent me to the Hall School in Hampstead where there were no girls.

At the Hall School they had very nasty sausages for lunch on a certain day of the week which might have been Thursday. I remember this because there were a lot of Jewish boys who could not eat pork so there was macaroni cheese for them instead. Once I discovered this I used to become a sort of honorary Jew on Thursdays and go along with the Jewish boys for macaroni cheese instead of sausages.

I was not learning much at the Hall but my mother said she would give me two and sixpence if I was top of my form so I got to be top and got the money. Then they moved me up a form and I got to be top again, but when I was eight I was taken away and sent to boarding school, I dont know why. I rather liked the Hall and did not much like the boarding school, so it was a silly idea to send me there, but in those days this was what people did with boys, and some people still do. I did not get to be top of any forms at this new school but I remember getting 0 out of 100 in a geography exam. I could never do geography, which was a nuisance later in life when I was working for a shipping company as I found it hard to remember where the places were that the ships were going to.

The boarding school was called Abinger Hill. It was in Surrey and had big grounds with lots of rhododendrons, and I have disliked rhododendrons ever since. My locker number was 36 and locker number 35 belonged to a boy called Desmond Forbes-Adam who used to twist my arm. I did not like him either; in fact he was worse than the rhododendrons. But to be fair, Abinger Hill was alright as far as prep schools go. There was only one sadistic master and he was fired pretty quickly and the bullying was nothing much compared to what you read about at other schools. There was a boy called Jopson whose nickname was Jeep. Sometimes on a wet afternoon when there was nothing much to do a ring of boys would dance round Jopson in a circle and chant penny a peep at the gandy Jeep until he became furious. This was a rotten thing to do and boys can be rotten fellows when they feel like it.

My best achievement at Abinger Hill was to win the under ten 100 yards race. My aunt Nancy was supposed to come to take me out to lunch on sports day but she did not come till after lunch so I did not get any lunch. All the other boys had big picnics with their parents or a big lunch laid on by the school to impress the parents and this must have slowed them down, so I won. I got a small silver cup which is now lost. This was my only sporting achievement, as I was not much good at football and hopeless at cricket.

My father was not rich, but most of the boys at Abinger Hill had rich parents and many went to Eton, unless they were too stupid, in which case they went to Stowe. There was one who was a viscount. His father was the Marquis of Queensbury and he was the Viscount Drumlanrig. He was a nice chap, about the same age as me and he brought his own pony to the school and kept it at a riding school nearby. I have eaten many meals in the company of the Marquis of Queensbury, which he now is. I remember this but he would not as I have not seen him for 73 years and unfortunately I have not become famous and made a lord or anything like that.

We called the viscount David Drum and he became quite famous afterwards, not just for turning into the Marquis of Queensbury but also for being Professor of Ceramics at the Royal College of Art and for having a large number of children. Some other Abinger boys also became famous, such as Sir Edward Boyle who was Secretary of State for Education and Sir Peregrine Worsthorne who edited the Sunday Telegraph and is now well-known for his flowing locks and remarkable clothes, such as purple velvet plus fours.

At the start of one term a German lady called Mrs Schonfeld came to the school with her son who was around seven or younger. She did not speak much English and her son did not speak any at all, owing to their being German as I said before. They were German Jews who had got away from Hitler but had no money, so the headmaster of Abinger Hill School, Mr G. J. K. Harrison, took them in. He gave Mrs Schonfeld a job as a matron and her son came to the school, which was a good deed by Mr G. J. K. Harrison. Mrs Schonfeld had a hard time being a matron and not speaking good English but Schonners, as we called him, was alright. We felt sorry for him as he was small and did not speak English so we did not give him a hard time. Anyway he soon learned English and when he was grown up he changed his name to Andrew Shonfield and became a famous journalist which was a fine result of the good deed of Mr G. J. K. Harrison.