Storyteller recalls how own tale began
Nury Vittachi's successful career as a writer was influenced by his years studying at an experimental school.
Who knows how writer Nury Vittachi might have turned out if he had had an uneventful childhood. Maybe the prolific creator of fiction for adults and children, and author of non-fiction that intertwines religion, science and Asian culture, would still have become such a witty and keen-eyed observer.
However, from the moment he appeared in the world he seemed set for anything but a humdrum existence. "I was born in Colombo in Sri Lanka," Vittachi, 55, says.
"A civil war broke out in the year I was born - although it wasn't my fault, my mother says - and we had to leave in a hurry in the 1960s."
The family eventually settled in England. The country, in general, proved an eye-opening experience for the five-year-old, but secondary education there took culture shock to a whole new level.
At that time, Creighton School, in North London, was attempting to create a brave new world within the government system. "It was an experimental school with all sorts of progressive policies," says Vittachi, who moved to Hong Kong in 1987.
"But from my point of view it was a disaster. One thing they tried was a no-rejections policy: all the kids rejected from every other school were accepted into this one."