The day for boarding school arrived. We set off straight after breakfast in my father’s highly-polished racing green Bentley. Griff, with his soldier’s upright bearing and uniform of a similar green, in the driving seat. My father, with a bulging briefcase on his lap, in the passenger seat, Marco and I in the back – our school cases, labelled with our names, in the boot.

Our first stop was Brighton station, where we dropped Marco off. He was to travel to London on his own, and spend a couple of days with his mother. At the station he shook my father’s  hand. ‘Goodbye and thank you, Sir.’ At eleven and a half he was very deferential when it came to my father. Griff retrieved his case from the boot. Marco took it and thanked him.                                                                                                                                                                      What were he and I to do? For weeks we’d been room-mates, comrades-in-arms, fellow strays in my father’s house; shaking hands seemed too formal. Yet boy and girl as we were, in 1953 we were miles from the spontaneity of hugging one another. From inside the car I peered out at him, my stomach clenching at his imminent departure. I rolled down the window, willing him to make some gesture, or offer a word or two that I could store up like a lucky charm against whatever lay ahead.

‘Right then I’m off. Er – take care Jo. Bye,’ he said awkwardly, and made off into the crowd, swinging his case. Head held high............

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