Brian Grover - Out of Russia

M other had only ever given me one piece of advice: Brian, never, repeat never, marry a woman who has no money. You will only live to regret it.

Little did she know as she intoned the mantra once more over the Christmas lunch table, that I was already married. And she was right, I did regret my marriage. Not, however, because Maddy had little money but because the free spirit who had bowled me over when we first met turned out to want nothing more than to tie me down to a routine office job in the hope I might become a bank manager.

No one from the outside would have suspected a thing but, in truth, behind the walls of our modest mansion in the Home Counties, every member of the comfortably middle-class Grover family lived with regrets. For my parents, the greatest of them was the way I had turned out. Born in the first year of the twentieth century, I had enjoyed all the advantages that went with this lifestyle. I had been educated by a governess until the age of nine and then at public school, and while Mother and Father were never close to me, they had given me what they deemed necessary and had every reason to believe I would grow up in their image, a son they could be proud of.

The change came during my time at university. Cambridge allowed room for nagging doubts to worm their way into my mind. I didnt have to join the army to fulfil the ambition my father had nursed for me ever since dropping me off for my first day at Charterhouse. I didnt have to marry the daughter of a wealthy, society family to make my mother happy. I had a degree in engineering and that could be my passport to a much more attractive life. The reality came with a jolt. But the greater shock was that I had not thought of it before. Suddenly it seemed obvious, and easy.

The week after graduation I deliberately missed the long-planned interview that would have opened the doors to officer training. Instead I spent the day at Shells headquarters and managed to talk my way into a post in their oilfields in Sarawak. On the train home I rolled the vowels round in my mouth. They tasted exotic, worth suffering the icy reception I was going to receive when I broke the news to my parents.

But now the job in Sarawak had been shut down by the depression, and as 1930 came to an end, I was enjoying my first Christmas at home for some time. Id gone back mainly out of duty and while my parents were pleased to see me, they could not refrain from regularly pointing out what a mess you have made of your life and expressing the hope that now that I had come to my senses I would get a proper job and become part of the smart set in the West End rather than squandering my time with those roughnecks I had been associating with.

Your trouble, young man, is that you have never listened, Father said as he carved the duck, each slice punctuated by a word of rebuke.

I felt little connection with these two people who seemed to exist in a different world from the one I knew, the one that continually tempted me to new experiences and new places. I was aware that I was a disappointment to them but on Boxing Day I realised just how deep that ran. One of their old friends came for lunch. He was completely in tune with them, agreeing with Mother that great deeds were being done for the poor by the Rotary Club, and also nodding vigorously when Father blustered that the blighters are never grateful, no matter what you do. Over coffee, the conversation turned to me and what Id been doing all these years that Id been away. Before I could answer, Mother said: Brian has been exploring. Hes been on an expedition in Sarawak.

I was ready to correct her when I caught Fathers eye and realised that admitting I had been pumping oil among a horde of uncouth roustabouts with grubby hands was taboo. What they felt was beyond disappointment. It was shame.