![]() My father was full of doubts: We had no knowledge of England or any contacts. His intention was to emigrate to Lebanon, which was the cultural and commercial capital of the Arab world – the so-called Paris of the Middle East – but a British colleague suggested he look at the UK. His life’s passion was to educate his children as best he could. But although my father was part of the independence movement that saw the peaceful end of British rule, he retained a quiet respect for the qualities he’d observed in the British civil servants he’d known.Īfter independence he became a businessman working on agricultural and industrial development, often with British companies. Back in the 1970s it was still a small backwater African country that few people had heard of. I grew up in Somalia, in the Horn of Africa – a country today synonymous with terrorism, lawlessness and Al Qaeda. My British schooling was down to tiny accidents of history that my family was caught up in. I was extremely fortunate in that they happened at all. Not just in the conventional sense of going to fantastic schools, with first-rate facilities and great teachers – although all that was true. I was extremely fortunate in having the school days that I did. ![]()
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