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Bangkok (again), Calcutta, Jodhpur, Baghdad, Cairo and Budapest. A little later we had to return to England because our father was appointed to his first
command, in charge of sailing a new destroyer to Singapore, which he was ordered to exchange for an older ship. He wrote on the return journey informing us of a rather surprising package that my
mother and Bunny had left for him to collect in Hong Kong – a black Malayan honey bear named Rastus. When Patricia and I returned to Malta to see Daddy the following year, I was not at all
pleased to make Rastus’s acquaintance. When he reared up on his hind legs he was as tall as my six-year-old self. To tell the truth, I was frightened of him; when we met in the garden I would
run away, but that didn’t help as he delighted in chasing me. Actually everyone was slightly scared of him, with the natural exception of Grandmama. Until her arrival, Rastus had been
enjoying free rein and was not very biddable, but he soon had a run-in with our grandmother. One teatime she discovered him on the table eating all the cakes. ‘Down, sir,’ she cried in
outrage. ‘Get down at once!’ Rastus of course got down at once. There was no one – human or animal – who could not be put in their place by Grandmama.
    When Yola arrived she brought with her a funny little short-haired dachshund puppy with slightly googly eyes. ‘
Ah, ma petite Pamela
,’ she called, ‘
voici un petit
cadeau
.’ Yola spoke very little English and we were usually required to speak to her in French. ‘Do you like?’ she added, because I had gone very silent. I couldn’t find
the words to express myself in any language. It was more than ‘like’ – it was love at first sight. ‘
Elle s’appelle Lottie – après Lottie
Minkus
,’ she continued, and although I had never heard of the opera singer then, it sounded like the perfect name for such a darling companion. I picked up my puppy and cuddled her, only
to be told by Nanny that I couldn’t play with her until I had written Yola a thank-you note. I spent the afternoon in a fug of despair, writing out in French ‘
merci . . . beaucoup .
. . pour . . . le . . . petit . . . chien
’ in a painstakingly careful hand because I knew that if I made a mistake I would have to start all over again. All I wanted to do was play with
my puppy, and as I pressed my pencil harder and harder into the paper, my hand hurting with the effort, I felt a bitter resentment well up inside me.
    That summer Lottie became the centre of my life and I, in return, became the object of her love. She faithfully trotted after me wherever we went and I looked after her as if my life depended on
it. Everything went smoothly until one hot, heart-stopping day when we all went out in a little green motor yacht so that my father could indulge in his new obsession. Waterskiing was a
comparatively new sport in the thirties but my father was already hooked. He had been driving along La Croisette in Cannes a few years earlier when he saw a man ‘with two long wooden planks
attached to his feet’. He was so impressed that he sought the man out, bought the ski kit from him and soon became an excellent skier. On more than one occasion, when his ship had stopped at
sea, he skied out to dinner between ships in full mess dress with trousers rolled up and shoes hanging by their laces around his neck, effortlessly dropping the ski rope when he reached the ladder
of the other ship. On this day in Malta, as my mother and Yola lay chatting and sunbathing, I walked around the boat to watch my father ski, something I always found mesmerising, like flying across
the water. Lottie was following me along the narrow edge of the boat when it suddenly lurched, she lost her footing and dropped into the waves. The world seemed to stop turning and I screamed at
the top of my voice. My father simply skied by, scooped Lottie up and placed her back on board.
    This blissful summer of 1935 was cut