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However, I did receive two letters from Heidi, though on the subject of the
birthday celebration on December 19th “…seems to be coming over…” (she was
then living in Geneva) was as much as I could glean. This, however, was but a
passing distraction; two days later, I was in the train bound for Tunbridge Wells,
my Articles assigned to P&O, and I was free until January 4th, when I was due
back at Warsash for the two- or three-month course.

The sojourn in Sussex seemed delightfully long, and it being the Christmas
season, there was a lot more activity in the village and town than was the norm. I
also learned that Mother had had a great time on the voyage to and from Trinidad.
In fact, she had met a delightful couple of Australians, and had invited them
down to the country to meet me shortly after my return, and a few days later they
came down for the day. They were a mother and her daughter, Christine, a young
lady who seemed nice enough, but was a bit ungainly and wore her hair, most
noticeably, in a fringe that almost covered her eyes; rather peculiar, I thought.
They lived on the north shore of Sydney harbour, so I dutifully took their address
and phone number; for some reason I was confident that P&O would want me
back (this did not happen automatically; I knew a newly certificated P&O officer
who found that the company had no vacancies when he applied to return to its
employ, and he suddenly had to find work on a scruffy coastal Shell tanker; he
was lucky to be recalled to P&O after plying the grimy northern English routes
for less than six months) and it would be nice to have such a conveniently located
friend in a port to which I expected to return at some time in the near future.

The further news on that trip was that she had met a couple who knew me
personally and became well acquainted with Mother (she was a very easy person
to talk to, even with those for whom she did not much care) and this common
thread gave them some common ground. But I was amazed to find out that this
‘friend of mine’ was Judith Smythe … and that she was travelling with her long-
term boyfriend! So, firstly, she was not ‘a waste’, and secondly, that female officers
followed the same shipboard ethos as we did. This was a major blow to my belief
that I was proficient at reading people; patently she was a very subtle lady who
had fooled us all.

I actually did do a bit of studying, but that did not represent all of my activities.
The main event, my 21st, was part wonderful, part fiasco. (I should point out that
Jacqueline was to be married on January 2nd, and we were in part celebrating my
birthday at this belated time because of conflicting dates, my course beginning
on January 4th.)

Father had arranged to have a dinner/dance in the main hotel in Brighton
(actually, I believe it to have been the hotel in which Margaret Thatcher was
bombed by the IRA, and some of her ministers killed, a few years later). I had
reminded Heidi by telegram of the date and even the trains by which she could

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