The title of this blog, Swish Cottage, and the blurb at left, may have led you to assume I'm a Londoner. I'm not. I mention below that I grew up in South Africa. But I'm not South African. I was born in Wales. But I'm not Welsh. My family come from Preston, Lancashire. But I'm not a northerner.

My dad couldn’t decide what he wanted to be when he eventually grew up, so we moved from place to place with horrible regularity. I went to twelve schools. Just as I was starting to make friends in one school, my dad would receive another calling, and we’d be off again. Here’s a potted history of my childhood.

1. St Joseph’s Roman Catholic School, Preston, England. Age 3 to 5.
Family legend has it that I went along with my mum to register my brother, Antony, who was five. I was just three-and-a-half. But I could read already. The headmaster saw me reading, while they discussed Antony’s future, and he was so impressed with this tiny, precocious child that he enrolled me as well. For the first few years of my life, I was a child prodigy. No, I didn’t run round the playground screaming, "I am a firestarter," but I was regularly called off the street into neighbours’ homes to prove that I could read the newspaper. Upside down. What happened?

2. Gregson Lane Primary School, Preston, England. Age 5 to 8.
I’ve just discovered, from doing a web search, that this was actually the same school as the one mentioned above, but just a more modern building. At some stage, my brother was moved up a class, as he was definitely a year above me. And, no, I am not going to consider the possibility that I was held back. I have vague memories: learning how to make water bombs in origami; reading The Little Red Hen; being able to spell Mediterranean correctly (something I didn’t manage to do when I first typed this); and my teacher – a Mrs Webb – whom I loved dearly.

3. Yeoville Boys’ School, Johannesburg, South Africa. Age 8 to 9.
I hated everything about our first few months in South Africa. Apart from the wonderful sunshine. I hated this school, I hated having to wear a uniform, with a cap, which was stolen, leading me to spend every afternoon in detention. I hated the corridors, which smelled of peanuts. Or was it piss? I hated the kids who bullied me, because I talked "foony". I still have a small scar on my forehead where I was shot with a catapult. And most of all, I hated being held back two-and-a-half years because I was patently too young to go into standard three. Never mind that I had already learned everything we did for the next few years. Of course, when I was at Yeoville Boys’ they didn’t brag about its most famous past-pupil, Joe Slovo, who went on to become head of the South African Communist Party.

4. Meyerton Primary School, a town near Johannesburg. Age 9.
My dad had decided he had had enough of being a fitter and turner. He’d love to be a farmer. So off we went to a 60-acre plot in the middle of nowhere, growing maize and milking cattle. I loved the big grain silos and I loved the party line phones. I also loved Lollo, the little black boy of my age, until I was told it would be best if I didn’t play with him any more. I hated watching the chickens having their heads chopped off with an axe. I remember seeing my kitten's head being bitten clean off by our Great Dane. Of the school, I remember almost nothing, apart from the asbestos pre-fab classrooms. Oh, and a girl with elephantiasis.

5. Aloe Ridge Primary School, middle of nowhere, South Africa. Age 10-11.
I loved this school. I loved our huge ramshackle house, Shooters’ Lodge, with the kopje behind it. At Aloe Ridge, someone discovered I could sing. I was given all the solos, hitting the high notes that none of the girls could reach. I loved the fact that there was no school bus, so I went to school on horseback. One morning a stallion, driven wild by the scent of my mare on heat, tried to mount her. I was thrown off. Of course, I had no idea what was going on – I just remember it as a violent scene. I think my dad was now a draughtsman, but he can't have been that happy, because after two – for me blissful – years, we packed up again and moved into the city.

6. Selborne Primary School, Vereeniging, South Africa. Age 11.
I have nothing but unhappy memories of this school. Selborne Primary was a huge, repressive, typically "Transvaal Education Department" school. I was forced to stay in every break to practise my handwriting, which simply would not comply with the government-approved script. Thankfully, I don’t think we were there very long, as my dad had had another brainwave: we would move back to Johannesburg, where he would become a teacher.

7. Forest Hill Primary School, Johannesburg, South Africa. Age 11 to 12.
Our move to Johannesburg coincided with the Soweto riots. We kids, of course, didn’t understand what was going on, but I distinctly remember the propaganda sessions disguised as history lessons. The political troubles may have had something to do with my dad’s next major decision: let’s uproot the kids again, and move to another country: Swaziland.

8. Usutu Forest Primary School, Mhlambanyati, Swaziland. Age 12.
We moved into a company-owned village, where the 300 residents all worked for the Usutu Pulp Company. And were almost all English expats. We lived in the middle of the world’s second-largest man-made forest, surrounded by rivers and mountains. And mist, which cut us off from the world for days at a time. Apart from the constant sulphurous stink of the nearby pulp mill, it was a magical place for a child to grow up. For the first time since we’d left England, I felt at home. I threw myself into school, making friends, taking the lead role in the play – a satirical panto in which I played a character named Suck-it, not understanding a single one of the double entendres I spouted.

And then it was off to high school. But that is quite enough for now.