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As the youngest of five, I quickly learned to do as I was told and generally keep out of trouble. Most of the rules related to water. It was considered essential that each child should have a boat and (as lifejackets were unknown in those days) discipline was necessarily fairly draconian. If one failed to pull one’s dinghy up the beach to well above the reach of the next tide, one would be in deep trouble.
And, of course, as a family we raced: Boats, that is. I was just one year old, when my mother abandoned me to the tender care of my grandmother, while she and my father went over to America to sail in an international regatta. Obviously, she had to get her priorities right! Back at home, each child between the ages of eight and eighteen (including my sister) had to provide a race crew for my father; crewmembers being selected by weight and strength according to weather conditions -- sometimes only minutes before the start of the race.
So it could be argued that I suffered a deprived childhood, but in fact we rather enjoyed it. I recall being devastated at being passed over in favour of an older brother (four years heavier) for an important race. It was blowing a gale that day, but my ten-year-old disappointment was only slightly mollified by the gift of a set of the new King Edward VIII stamps.