Though it seems impossible to credit now, the first time I flew on my own, was when I was six years old.

I wasn’t even a tough six or a worldly six.

Nothing, thus far, in my somewhat remote, but privileged life, had prepared me for this experience, other than the emotional rigours of the past year at an English boarding school, and the resulting deprivations of dietary, familial and empathetic sustenance.

As far as practicalities were concerned, I could read and dress myself, had a smattering of French and Latin, and knew not to accept gifts from strangers, especially those with moustaches. But I knew nothing of timetables, the art of packing, or the general business of travel.

I was, none the less, excited beyond words, to be making my solo journey from London to Kuala Lumpur, in what was then Malaya.

It was to take the best part of two days to get there, as we would refuel at various places on the way. These turned out to be Frankfurt and Beirut, as Bagdad was a no-go area, as has often been the case. We were to spend a night in Karachi before flying on to our destination, with a further refuelling stop, which I now cannot remember.

I had gone to London on the school train, a few days prior to flying, with many of my fellow schoolboys. At Victoria Station, my grandmother met me and took me to the Goring Hotel, and there we stayed for a couple of days, before my journey began.

My twin sisters, also at a boarding school in England, were not coming on this trip; they would remain in England, with various great-aunts and other curious relations, which is what I had done the previous year, when it had been their turn to visit our parents abroad.

As a whole family, we came together next, only when we all fetched up in Germany and France, a few years later. This seems a somewhat callous arrangement nowadays, but it was not unusual back then, and did give one a sense of self-sufficiency, if also a somewhat imbalanced view of parenthood.

My grandmother took me to Gorringe’s in Victoria, the shop that stocked our school uniform and the tropical kit needed for the East, and armed with white and blue Aertex shirts, Clarke’s sandals, cotton shorts and, best of all, underpants that weren’t made of the appallingly uncomfortable flannel that we were made to wear at school. So, with the additions of my school sports clothes, blazer and tie, my wardrobe was complete.

We returned to the hotel to pack these with some of the same treats that my grandmother always bought me right up until she died when I was eleven or twelve. Amongst these, were some of the popular sweets of the day: bullseyes and liquorice sticks, sugar prawns (an abiding addiction) and toffees. She bought them, by weight, in paper bags, in which they hardened or melded together; Fry’s Five Boys chocolate bars were the only thing she ever bought with branded wrapping, and that was only because the Fry family, being Quakers, had looked after my father’s sister when she was orphaned. So soon after the war, with sweets being an excessive luxury, maybe she had thought that garish wrappers were a step too far.

She also bought me comics, like The Eagle and The Boys’ Own Paper - full of tales of derring-do, a couple of Enid Blyton books, and a Biggles or Bulldog Drummond book, which, although too advanced for me then, had illustrations that I could colour in.

These were all packed in an old leather suitcase, emblazoned with my maternal great-grandfather’s name, which was not that helpful as I didn’t share his surname; it was painted with two coloured stripes in regimental colours, and covered in exotic stickers, which seemed glamorous beyond words, boasting of trips to Rangoon, Mandalay, Calcutta and Constantinople. The bits and pieces I didn’t pack would go into the BOAC (The British Overseas Air Corporation) young traveller’s bag, which would become one of my most treasured possessions.

The terminals used for intercontinental flight were then at Victoria, or the Cromwell Road, neither of which were ever busy, and my grandmother took me to the latter in a black London cab, a model almost unchanged since before the war.

London then, was still peppered with bomb sites, and dense pea-souper fogs from coal-fires were rife. The bright clothes of the sixties, that would light up London in the years to come, were nowhere to be seen, but everyone - porters and pilots and waiters and bankers were all spit and polish.

The BOAC staff’s uniform was smarter than most as they were mostly men and women recently demobbed from the RAF and the services, so I was confident that the pilots would be aces from the war, and utterly dependable for the bumpy take-offs and landings, which were, then, completely manual.  

At the terminal, I was passed over to a member of that extraordinary band of Margaret Rutherford look-alikes, Universal Aunts. My grandmother pecked me on the cheek goodbye, before my new guardian marched me away to drop off my luggage, where there was much stamping of papers and sticking of stickers, before the documents were handed to me, in an elegant envelope.

The Universal Aunt tied a label, similar to Paddington Bear’s, to my blazer lapel, and then came the crowning glory, the stamping of the passport – and my receipt of the BOAC young traveller’s bag.

I cannot think what the modern equivalent of that bag might be; it was filled with barley sugars, puzzles, colouring books and other treats, but the bag itself was unforgeable and iconic; most importantly, it marked you out as having travelled intercontinentally to places beyond most children’s imaginations; it had more heft than any frequent flyer or gold card of today, as so few of my contemporaries had one.

A stewardess, impossibly glamorous in side cap and pencil skirt, swaying and clacking in high heels, escorted us to the coach that would take us straight to the aeroplane, where, at the steps I said goodbye to the Universal Aunt, and was handed over to yet another stewardess.

I cannot exaggerate the glamour and elegance of the stewardesses then, and the high regard in which they were held; they were seen as highly accomplished, sophisticated and cosmopolitan, especially as then, most of the population had never been abroad unless they had been in the services. As you can gather, I idolised those stewardesses from an early age; I loved their beaming smiles, patience, humorous worldliness, not to mention their uniforms which, I admit, I somewhat fetishized, as I grew up.

Take-off was an extraordinarily exciting experience; the coughing into life of the propellors and then trundling down the runway was as good as any fairground ride.

Once airborne, time passed wondrously, and I cannot remember being bored. The stewardesses spoiled me by chatting and playing games with me (if only this was still the case), and I finished my colouring-in books, and read my comics (so, little has changed there). Hours passed, looking out of the window, at the clouds, the land masses and the sea, which I saw quite clearly, flying so much lower in those days. I could make out the ships - specks on the endless blue, the rolling fields that seemed so rarely to give way to urban sprawl, the mountains and rivers, and I must have infuriated the stewardesses, asking them where we were now, and which town, country, and river was below us.  Although there was a map of our journey in my BOAC bag, I fell asleep so often, I regularly lost my bearings.

When refuelling in Frankfurt at an RAF aerodrome, I decided that the travellers we picked up there must lead extraordinarily adventurous lives, going from one foreign country to another, and felt a surge of excitement as I imagined myself having a similarly nomadic future.

For the next refuelling in Bahrain, we stayed in the plane, and I looked out, fascinated, at the desert landscape, the camels and the people dressed as they were in the Bible, and in books and films I had seen, then we took off over an endless sea of sand towards harsh, uninviting mountains.

The landscape became rockier as we headed towards Pakistan, and when night fell, the accompanying sunset drew gasps from the passengers. It was only there, and then once more between Pakistan and Malaya, that the thought of being marooned in either place - boiling mountain or suffocating jungle – worried me, but never for long as food was continually brought to us, and acted as a helpful distraction.

Meals involved much turning of chairs and fitting of tables before they were covered with linen, and laid with glasses, real knives and forks, and metal salts and peppers. There was a young person’s version of each meal which I recall was pudding-based, and came with a teacup full of sweets and a small bar of chocolate. I was not aware of other children on the flight, but even if there had been, I would not have been keen to meet them, basking, as I was, in the glorious warmth of the stewardesses.

When we began our descent to Karachi, it was dark, and the romance of landing at night, somewhere so exotic, made my heart leap, as it still does; watching the lights, palm trees, and small unfamiliar white buildings shoot past my window, was a mystical experience.

At Karachi, a different Universal Aunt met me, and, if I had not known it to be impossible, I would have sworn it was the same one who had put me on the aeroplane. Despite living on the subcontinent, where she was a teacher at an orphanage, she was, like her co-Aunt in London, dressed in a heavy tweed suit and a matching pork pie hat.

I cannot remember how we got to the hostelry, but I know it was called Min Wallah’s Grand Hotel, because my parents, and many servicemen on that route, had stayed there, and it had therefore acquired a reputation. It had a huge front which, in the light of day, revealed itself to be a mere façade, held up by wooden struts like a film set, which hid a small guesthouse.

Our room there had two beds, one for each of us, and on mine, lay a sarong. The tiny bathroom had only a sink in it, on the edge of which was a toothbrush with paste already on it, a brick of carbolic soap, the size of a sugar lump, and a small towel.

Having washed, I put on the sarong and the Universal Aunt gave me a glass of cooled boiled milk, which was undrinkable even under duress. Although I had been vaccinated before my trip to the East, there were killers in the water, and dysentery lurked in fruit and juices, so drink was a recurring concern amongst foreigners, and sources of clean liquid were as sought after as drugs are for an addict. Westerners often fell sick, and seriously so, even taking daily quinine pills and with mosquito nets covering every bed and window.

The Aunt made me say my prayers, and disappeared into the bathroom, reemerging, miraculously, in a thick flannel nightdress which was, perhaps, the lightest piece of clothing she owned.

She read me a story, which seemed like an excerpt from a less serious version of the Bible, then turned out the light. Given how excited I was, I was convinced I would not sleep, but I must have lapsed into unconsciousness immediately, because before I knew it, I awoke to the morning noise and heat of Karachi, spilling in through the windows.

To be as far away as Pakistan in those days, was to be cut adrift from everything I was used to. The sweltering heat, combatted only by slow-moving fans, was overwhelming, and what seemed like utterly anarchic behaviour from roadworkers and traffic policemen, or the incompetence of waiters, railway officials or anyone in charge of anything, was completely unfamiliar to me, having only the gentle order of post war Britain, and the regime of an English boarding school, to compare it with.

At first it was frightening, but I later came to find the clamour and unpredictability of ‘abroad’ invigorating and amusing. There was no contact with home to be had, other than a pre-booked telephone call (unlikely to happen), or a telegram (expensive and requiring endless waiting in a post office), or air mail (a few days there, and a few days for a reply).

The BBC foreign service was the main link with England and, apart from the Test Matches, there was nothing much that they talked about, that I understood. Though I had become aware of recent and influential moves in world affairs - the Hungarian uprising and Suez - I had no idea, for instance, what my father was doing in Malaya, or who we were fighting, or why.

The bloody and mismanaged Partition between India and Pakistan was only a decade old, so there were still signs of British rule everywhere, which gave me hope of some familiar order, but this was nearly always misplaced.

However, the Universal Aunt, fluent in Urdu and not a taker of shit from anyone, had learnt over her years in Karachi, how to solve any complication. I watched, open-mouthed, as she marched towards difficulties, scattering gesticulating locals, her face set in a rictus of a smile, and with the Gordian Knot technique, cut through the problem firmly and patronisingly, leaving everyone happy.

She should rule the world, I thought.

There were many Englishwomen of her vintage, who would subsequently come into my life, and even the most eccentric and intoxicated made more sense and were more effective than most of our current world leaders.

The next morning, I bathed in a zinc hipbath, and brushed my teeth with Punch and Judy toothpaste. The breakfast offered appealed to neither of us, so we got to the airport in plenty of time and waited outside to put off the ghastly moment of sallying into the heat and stench of the small terminal.

Our stewardesses were there, chatting with the crew - an impossibly glamorous cabal - and having a smoke. Although they were attracting much attention, small knots of men and women were stopping by me, and one or two of the older ladies were breaking ranks to pat my head, before being shooed away by The Aunt. When I asked what was going on, she told me that the more superstitious bystanders believed that if a young boy had white hair, and mine was a very light blonde, he was an old and highly intelligent dead man, reborn into a young body. Touching his head, therefore, imparted intelligence and good luck to the toucher. Naturally, I fully subscribe to this excellent and obvious belief and have tried to promote it – unsuccessfully – for years.

The time had come to hand me over to the stewardesses, so I took leave of The Aunt, ambivalent about my feelings for her. She was a bit too tough to love, but immensely reassuring to have had around. Even when she had brushed my hair, and ‘gone over’ my face to remove dirty smuts, a process that had irritated me, I was too awestruck by her presence to show my displeasure. On the plane, I thought about her more, and how lonely she might be, and for a while, felt sentimental towards her, up until the stewardesses began to make much of me, and my focus was swiftly diverted. I was so besotted by them that I cannot remember a single other adult ever talking to me, which I presume they must have done.

The view from the window changed from arid and threatening, to lush and threatening, with nowhere safe to land, I remember thinking, but as we approached the final leg of the trip I was taken, quivering with excitement, up to the cockpit of the plane. It was thrilling beyond belief, and the view, through the expanse of the cockpit’s shield, was breathtaking.

Even at that age, I was utterly averse to mechanical things, and, despite my romantic view of pilots, I realised, looking at the muddle of dials and switches, flashing lights and levers, that I would never be able to cope with them, nor ever wish to.

Many small boys have found going into a cockpit a Damascene moment, which fired in them a passion for flight or machinery, but, apart from the view below and the outrageous beauty of the clouds and sky, I was unmoved. Snatched glimpses of the sea made it seem impossibly infinite and, as we began dropping down to earth, the jungle and colours that I had never seen before, came into view.

I was excited by what sort of a welcome I would get, but also nervous to see my parents, whom I had not seen for the best part of a year. I felt sure they would be at the airport to greet me but also had a small panic that one of us might not recognise the other.

The descent, in those days, was hard on the ears, and everyone wildly sucked Barley Sugars, handed out by the staff, to counter the effects as the plane started to weave and drop in the thermals. The smoothness of the landing was completely governed by the skills of the pilot, and our lives were in his hands. We had already landed a few times with the same pilot, and the stewardesses had told me, in awe, that he had flown bombers in the war, and was the smoothest landing airman with whom any of them had flown. I confess I was a little jealous. I’m not sure how flying a Lancaster over Germany could have taught him this level of sensitivity, but none of us had any fear nor felt any discomfort, which was a rare thing then, as landings and take-offs could be quite hairy.

All the passengers washed and brushed-up before landing, put on make-up, hats and ties, so that they all left the plane looking as if they were going to a cocktail party.

I said goodbye to the crew, and the stewardesses - except the one that was to take me to the terminal and help me claim my suitcase - gave me kisses, whilst my fellow flyers earnestly shook my hand.

Once we had reclaimed our luggage, we went through customs, manned by men in gleaming white uniforms, and, as we came out into the hall, the stewardess asked me if my parents would be there to meet me. 

“I suppose so,” I said, and she stayed by my side until we spotted a soldier waving at me.

I recognised him as my father’s soldier driver, Bowley, who was a fixture of my youth. He looked completely different to the last time I’d seen him in the cold of Germany, now dressed in shorts and tropical kit, hair shorn off, and as brown as a berry, with his tattoos almost invisible against his tan.

“Who are you?” She asked him, as he got to us.

“Bowley, Ma’am, the Major’s driver, Ma’am.” He answered snappily.

“But where are his mother and father?” asked the stewardess of Bowley.

“Not ‘ere, Ma’am.” He answered, standing to attention as he would have assumed the stewardess, in her snappy uniform, to be senior to him.

“Well, where are they, then?” she asked, putting a protective arm around my shoulder. “They haven’t seen him for nearly a year.”

We had discussed how long I had been away from my family, and I may have over-egged my sadness, when, in reality, it hadn’t affected me that much. However, I had begun to realise how much attention I could get from the stewardesses, as an ‘abandoned child’.

“The Major’s on the golf course and Mrs F is playing tennis, but they said they’ll be back to see him at teatime.’

“Poor little mite. Honestly.” Then she turned to me and said, “Sorry, but I’ve got to go now, but it’s been lovely meeting you, and have a lovely holiday.”

With this, she shook her head slightly at Bowley, who replied with a shrug, and then bent down and hugged me to her scented bosom, kissing me on the cheek, before clacking and swaying out of my life.

I basked in the warmth of a woman’s sympathy, and realised, for the first time, how far this tale of neglect could get me.

“Cor!” said Bowley, “She’s a cracker.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I think she loves me.”

“You might be right.” He said. “Well, how are you and how was the trip?”

“Super.” I answered.

“Ice cream and feed the monkeys?” asked Bowley, and I remembered this was a routine that had developed at our last posting together.

“Rather,” I answered, and added the second part of the code. “Ice cream first, and then think about the monkeys. 

He took my case, and we wandered to the Army jeep, parked under palm trees, and surrounded by a gaggle of Malays, Indians and Chinese, all people I had never encountered before.

“Oi, Fuck off!” said Bowley.

I was in Malaya.