So, it's January the 15th, 1981. My mother, Freda, has just turned 39 a few weeks ago, and my father, Harold, is 41. I'm twelve, and all three of us have just touched down at Jan Smuts International in Johannesburg in a South African Airways 747. This is surely the largest beast I've ever seen, and it's interior looks even bigger. It's like a Tardis.
The plane has come to a stop but my mother's eyes are still red and swollen from the traumatic goodbyes spluttered to her parents yesterday afternoon, and my old man hasn't been able to shake the half-guilty, half-frightened look that he started wearing about a week ago.
England is behind us, our little village, Wyke, is behind us. Were we just bored with that life? I'm not really sure.
