This is the earliest known picture of her, taken in our house in Muthaiga, a suburb of Nairobi.

Significantly, even at this young age, she is holding a cat - a harbinger of what was to become a life-long association and love for all manner of animals.

Around VE Day, (May 8th, 1945) with the prospect of postal service resuming to Holland, my parents had this (and the next) picture taken to be able to send it to the family in Holland after over 5 years of no contact.

Photos were needed to be able to send to both sides of the family, so multiple pictures were taken.

In the autumn of 1947, my parents managed to wangle cabin-space on a troop-ship travelling from Mombasa to Glasgow, and from there they made their way by train and North-sea ferry to Holland to visit the family for the first time in well over a decade - in fact since 1934 when Wil's mother left Holland to join Wil's Father in Uganda.

(Wil's mother had married her father "by proxy" in 1934. Because of difficulties in travelling to/from Central Africa in those days, her mother got married to a stand-in acting for her Dad while her Dad was living in a tent in Western Uganda. This was because in those days it was considered unseemly for a single woman to go on a ship to the colonies unaccompanied by a chaperone - so she got married before embarking on the ship. The stand-in was Wim Moeselaar, brother-in-law of the groom.

So Wil's mother travelled solo to East Africa to join her new husband - this pattern was to repeat itself a generation later.)

We arrived in Holland just in time for the coldest winter in many years. We were not equipped with winter clothing, and because clothing was scarce (and still rationed for a lot of items) we had to make do with all manner of hand-me-downs from the family.

Even though we lived in Uganda, both Wil and I had to go to boarding school in Kenya from around the age of seven until we completed secondary school - this was because Uganda was considered not healthy for growing children (Both in terms of the hot humid climate as well as disease such as Malaria, Sleeping Sickness and sundry other diseases).

School was a 24-hour train ride from home (assuming the train was on time with no breakdowns or other hindrances) so even though we were brother and sister, we only saw each other for a month at a time between school terms which lasted three months. Wil attended The Loreto Convent at Msongari - a girls-only school just outside Nairobi, whereas I went to a "primary" school in Gilgil until I was 11 years old and then transferred to a "secondary" school outside Narobi until I was 17.

My sister was five years older than me, thus she completed her formal school education at about the time I transferred to secondary school. This picture was taken around that time - at which point our parents were faced with a dilemma - Wil badly wanted to become a nurse, but she was still far too young to move to the U.K. and start her training.

So it was decided she would spend a year at a "Finishing School" in Switzerland - after which should would only have to wait a few months before signing up to train at a teaching hospital in London. But she still had to wait for some months to be able to join the school in Switzerland at the beginning of their school-year, so in the mean time she joined the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) in Uganda and started her training as a nurse the hard way - by working alongside nurses and medical orderlies under spartan conditions in primitive rural clinics.

After the completion of her stint at Finishing School in Switzerland, Wil cam back to Kampala for a brief visit before it was time for the whole family to go on holiday back to Holland for a few months. (My Dad's company allowed all expatriate staff to return home for a visit every four years)

Wil and I picked up the Dutch habit of cycling everywhere - here we are exploring a nature preserve known as the "Renderklippen", fairly close to where our parents eventually retired in the village of Heerde.

After what turned out to be our last Holiday with the four of us together "en famille", my parents and I returned to Uganda, and Wil left for England to start her formal education as a Nurse. This lasted around four years or so - during which time she met the man who was to become her husband - John Brice-Smith.

John was studying to become a Doctor at The Middlesex Hospital in London where Wil was also working. As soon as John had completed his residency requirements they got married and John applied successfully for a posting in Uganda. The idea was that he would take a ship to Mombasa and thence by train through Kenya to Uganda - and Wil would follow him some time later as soon as she had completed her education and qualified as a Registered Nurse.

Such was not to be. Wil was very unhappy to be parted from John and alone in England - so instead she booked a flight and was at the Railway Station in Kampala in time to meet his train as it steamed in from Mombasa.

John initially was assigned to the main Hospital in Kampala, but soon thereafter was transferred to a remote part of Western Uganda near the Ruwenzori Mountains (also referred to as "The Mountains of The Moon") on the border with the Congo. In another coincidence, this was not far from the spot where my Father first arrived in Uganda some three decades earlier on assignment to explore the area.

John now worked out of a small primitive Hospital in a town called Kabale. This was his "base" but his duties covered a much wider area and he spent a large proportion of his time "on the road" visiting outlying clinics minstering to the medical needs of a number of villages in the region.

On one of these "tours", my parents accompanied Wil and John - here they have stopped at a small settlement and Wil (the the right of the car) is talking with some local youths - explaining the purpose of the visit and questioning them (in Swahili) on the state of health of the local population. (I presume this picture was taken by my Father).

At the time they moved to Kabale, things still seemed to look viable to build a life and a career in Uganda, but soon after, independence was granted to The Congo by the Belgians - and suddenly the world seemed to come apart. Within days there were refugees streaming across the border into Uganda as anarchy reigned in the Congo between warring factions and in a country where all semblance of government had disappeared overnight. There were already plans for Uganda to become independent within a matter of years - but the name "Idi Amin" was as yet unknown.

Wil and John decided that the future was too risky in Uganda and made plans to return to the U.K. Here they are visiting my parents - who had meanwhile moved to Kenya from Uganda - having a farewell dinner in the house where Wil was born.

Wil and John returned to England where John went back to school to specialize in Public Health and get the requisite Diploma to enter that field of medicine. They lived in the upstairs left-hand side of a house in Harlesden NW10, whose picture I just retrieved via Google Street View. Meanwhile Wil took a job as a secretary at the Head Offices of "Cable and Wireless" to which she commuted every day in Central London. Later she found a job with "Heinz" in Harleseden within walking distance, thus avoiding the commute.

At about the same time, I had joined the Nairobi branch of British manufacturer of punched-card accounting machines.. This was in the era when computers (large mainframes that took up several rooms) were just becoming commercialy available - the company changed its name to International Computers and Tabulators and I was sent to Britain for training in these new-fangled things. This training involved me formaly becoming an "apprentice" and having to live for short periods in different places in England. Whenever I had to be in London, I stayed with Wil and John in their digs in Longstone Avenue in Harlesden - together with the parrot "Barker". The picture above of Wil and John was taken on a day when we went for a walk in the park opposite the house on Longstone Avenue - it was a bitterly cold day, too cold for a walk in my opinion, but not in theirs.