Robin's Memories

Robin added his own impressions to Sheila's account:

I can remember my father coming home from work and out into the garden and calling out “Poto, Poto, Willy willy woto, aw haw haw haw haw” [rising with a final fall]. I was called Poto by all the Burmese (and English too), which is Burmese for “fat boy”. In Burma it is thought to be rather an accolade to have a fat child, so this was quite a compliment. I mostly remember him wearing what he called a sweatshirt, which was a heavy aertex shirt, and I remember the smell of sweat and perspiration on him. My memory is that he came from work like that, but I’m sure they had to wear European suit and tie at work.

I remember playing a lot with the servants children, walking around with them in and out of the house, out a lot in the big garden, and going down to their quarters. Also, in the garden, my father was very keen on aerial ropeways, like the one I set up in this garden (Carriage Drive), and his was very fine, well up above the ground. You had to climb up some sort of ladder and get into a seat and away you went. I must have been about 4 or 5 and it seemed a huge long distance, very exciting and very fast. That was super.

The sailing clubhouse was set up on what seemed to me enormously high stilts (although they were probably quite small really), so that it hung out over the water, and the loo was just a huge pipe that had a seat on the top and went down through the floor and discharged into the lake. Sanitation wasn’t that important then! I remember it so clearly because I was very frightened going into this to spend a penny or anything, because I was fearful of falling down this hole - which I could easily have done. It was a wide enough diameter for me to go all the way down I think!