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100 boys in the Boys' School and 100 girls in the Girls' School. The Prep School, as the primary school was called, was in an old building and I can well remember the misery of homesickness. After tea at six o'clock we were sent to bed, which seemed ridiculous. My father stayed a few days before sailing for Hong Kong but I saw very little of him. When he left I felt abandoned. Others even younger suffered the same fate but seemed to survive.
In fact these schools were run by a most devoted staff of missionaries who took great care of us - body and soul. They were of a fundamentalist persuasion and expected very high moral behaviour from all of us. The standard of teaching was high and the students got good marks in the Oxford School Certificate exams.
The Four Seasons
School life was regulated to fit the climate. The winters were bitter and so cold that one year we came back from holidays to find the sea frozen over. We walked from the docks to school over the sea. The summers were glorious. I suppose they were hot as I remember hearing of temperatures of 100°F or more but it was dry and on the whole not so hot as Hong Kong. The sea was perfect for swimming, which was allowed once it had reached the temperature of 64°F for three successive days. Spring and autumn were intermediate - considerably colder than the summer but not the freezing temperatures of the winter. To cope with these extremes in climate we had three sets of clothing - khaki shirts and shorts for summer, wool jackets and shorts for spring and autumn and thick wool jackets and plus fours for the winter. The school buildings were also designed to cope with these extremes. The spacious verandahs round the playground of the Boys' School kept the hall and common rooms cool in the summer. In the winter, wooden frames with glass were put up in the arches of the verandahs giving an extra layer of insulation while central heating was going full blast.
There was always some excitement with each change of season. Watching the removal of the glass frames on the verandahs heralded the abandonment of our plus fours. The production of khaki shirts and shorts meant swimming and rowing was not far off. I can remember so clearly gazing out of the bedroom windows across the glassy calm sea in the early mornings wondering if it had reached the magic 64°. In the autumn the halcyon summer days would end abruptly with the