Born in Kenya, Africa spent my formative years on a farm .
Once my parents were on their way to town in an old noisy van with me in the back. After some miles my mother turned around to see if I was alright. I was missing! I had fallen out through the van doors probably after opening them myself. On reflection, I could have been taken by some predator -lion, leopard, or pack of hyenas and possibly brought up as one of them, more like eaten, but I have read Kipling!
Fortunately, my parents turned the van around and located me safe and sound.
When aged six I was sent to boarding school where corporal punishment was used to discipline, and the cane wielded by the headmaster-a megalomaniac- was an oiled leather whip!
The vivid birds, dramatic weather, spectacular wild life could not fail to inspire anyone to want to reproduce the sights that could be seen. Eventually, the politics of the country became lethal towards us and my parents fled the continent returning to England.
I gazed out the window of the plane as it crossed over the English Channel, never had I seen such greenery 'This emerald isle set in a silver sea.' This change of scene made us poor in pocket but rich in culture.

Welcome to Art of Sparke..
Early years 'out of Africa'