Argentina 1942-1950

I was brought up at our family home (owned by my grandparents) in Calle Rioja, Olivos, a northern residential suburb of Buenos Aires. We each had a room, and there were two maids. We didn't have a car (nobody did in those days).

We had a dog, which had been a stray, called Scamp. It was a small, whiteish, terrier sort of thing, and it smelt. My sister was very fond of it.

I went to St Andrews Scotch School (it was Scotch then, before the PC Scots took over) within walking distance in Olivos. The headmaster was Mr Tate, the argentine headmaster was Sr Ruffo, and my form mistress was Sra Magaldi. In the playground I remember 6 or 8 of us would link arms and march about chanting "Vea, vea, vea, tos tanques de Corea" (See, see, see, the tanks of Korea). We collected little round cards of footballers, and we would lay some out in front of the school wall, and others would throw theirs from 1.5m away. If they landed on yours, they won, otherwise you kept what the had thrown.

In 1949 my parents moved to Chile, and I became a boarder. My mother had a thing about my breathing, and I had two blocks of wood 8" high under the feet of my bed. As a newbie boarder I was not pleased to see the dormitory with a row of beds, and mine standing out.

Odd memories: My father throwing a ball right over the house. During Sunday lunch (roast beef) my father pilling on a threat attached to the door, and closing it slowly, (scaring me). My father building a lattice house in the garden out of cane. We had a chicken run at the bottom of the garden. Neighbours: Bubi, Julie Fortabat, Jean-Pierre. Julie Fortabat was probably a member of the prominent family. Later, in my teens, and for no reason as all, I formed a crush on her.

I once went into a watchman's hut in a building site over the road and stole his watch which was there. I felt so bad about it the next day that I went back and put it back. Also, next door there were 5 or 6 builders doing a lot of work, and each day they would have an asado over a wood fire (as was the custom for building workers) and it smelt so good that I went over there and they were pleased to share some of it with me. Of course they drank red wine with it, but not me. My parents didn't seem to mind at all. Meat was extremely cheap in those days.

We used to make carts with “rulemanes” (ball bearing races) for wheels. We had to go up Rioja some way, because it was cobbles where we lived.

Car races, using 1940s US coupes with the mudguards cut away, called coches preparados, racing from city to city, up to Peru and back, were all the rage. We would listen to it on the radio: “Coche a la vista!” (“Car in sight!”) Juan Manuel Fangio (didn’t like him, his car was a Chevrolet, and I liked Fords), Juan Galvez, my favourite was Oscar Galvez (he prompted me to call my first son Oscar). This is where I got my liking for a Ford racing car, and later bought one.

We had plastic models of the race cars, about 10cm long. We would cut out the boot lid and glue cloth over it (for lightness), fill the car with plasticene, take off the plastic wheels and axles and replace them with wide wire axles and the wheels off Dinky toys, sometimes several to make them even wider. We would make a circuit on a smooth street out of grass cuttings etc, and race (one push per go).

I got given a Raleigh bicycle – very special, imported English. But all I can remember of it was when I had it stripped, no mudguards, and used very roughly. We used to play bicycle polo. We would go to the polo grounds in Palermo, where you could run around under the stands, and collect the wooden balls which had been knocked out of play (and thus replaced).

I remember the carnival parades, when people squirted perfumed water at everyone, the horse-drawn delivery carts (one of them died in the street opposite us), and the ice-cream seller going around shouting "Lapooo-nia". And the ice-cream shop at the Olivos port with drop-down wire-netting chains at the door. Also men going round the streets driving a flock of 50 flamingos for sale. Oh, the memories!