My father was in the Royal Air Force so we were always on the move and I attended 14 different schools. Though my brother was sent to boarding school when he was eight, I was shipped from school to school and sadly, on some occasions, I was in one school for as little as a month but more usually one term. It got to the point where my mother would say: 'Well dear, I don't think it's really worth buying a school uniform.' Of course I stuck out like a sore thumb standing around in my previous school's uniform. Some people would have found all that moving too distracting and, at times, I was hardly in one place long enough to make friends. But I was always chatty and quite sociable without being pushy and that helped a bit. One of my father's postings must have been on a very remote RAF station, I cannot remember where exactly. Because there were no [formal] schools nearby, I had a kind of governess who was so deaf I had to shout down a long tube so she could hear me. I was not particularly good at maths but I could do mental arithmetic. When I was about 10 years old I was at Norwich High School and there, if you were considered up to scratch, you could go into the headmistress' study and be grilled and end up with a [multiplication] tables championship badge. I can picture it now; it was dark green corduroy with a silver star on it. In one school we learned a few spellings each day, a skill which I think is important and now find useful in my writing. People today don't bother about [correct spelling] at all and argue, what with texting and spellchecks, that it doesn't matter. Before my photography career took off I used to mark biology [exam] papers and we were told not to deduct marks for bad spelling. It was at the time the Beatles were very popular, and that's how the students spelt the insect every time. I ended up at Wellington Girls' College [in New Zealand]. We had to wear black stockings but what with repeated washings, the black faded and became a dingy green colour. We did cookery classes in some ancient building and the boys were doing carpentry on the floor below. There were holes in the floorboards and we used to pour flour on to them below. When I left New Zealand, I remember all my form came to the dockside with streamers, which of course you did in those days. I was yelling: 'I'll be back, I'll be back.' I have a lot to be thankful for during my time there. I became very keen on sport. I played netball for the school team, and that was good fun, and also did a lot of swimming and springboard diving, and was so good [at the latter] that I represented my county and region on my return to England. I was able to attend West Bridgeford Grammar School because I had already taken and passed my 11-plus [exam] just before leaving for New Zealand, so they had to take me really. We once went on a skiing trip to Norway where there was a bronzed, handsome ski instructor who we all posed with for photographs. It was my first trip abroad without my parents ... it made me more independent and started my quest to travel, which I do now, constantly. Once I got into the sixth form at Gosforth Grammar I was doing botany, zoology and chemistry, all subjects I loved. But then - would you believe it - my father moved again and I had to go to Wycombe High, an all-girls school, which used a totally different exam board. But my luck was in. One of our practical exams was dissecting a cockroach and nobody had done it, but I had up in Gosforth, so they all came out with glum faces and I came out smiling. At Wycombe High, I learned to drive and my driving instructor used to turn up to school in a small sports car. All the girls would look and it really turned heads. But using it was a big mistake. When I took my test I was failed for improper use of the mirror and I was sure it was because I was in a sports car. So I told him next time to use a dowdy car - I think it was a Morris Minor - and I passed first time.