The Lion Tamer’s Daughter (32 page)

Here are Peter and his brother Richard as children in Africa, where many of Peter's books take place. In fact, he used this photo as a pivotal clue in
Perfect Gallows.

The family came “home” in 1935 so that the boys could go to British boarding schools, but within a few months, when Peter was seven, their father died suddenly of a strangulated gut, leaving their mother with very little money. Their British relations were close knit and supportive, and in 1936 Peter was sent to Saint Ronan's, a prep school in Worthing with a charismatic headmaster named Dick Harris. Pictured here are Peter (in the red jersey), age eight, with his mother, elder brother, Richard, and younger brother Hugh.

This is a photo taken in 1936 during a family holiday at Stutton. The Fisons had been very good friends with Peter's father and stayed close to his family after his death. They invited the Dickinsons to stay with them for several vacations at their house on one of the Suffolk inlets. They would spend most of the day in boats on a local pond or on the nearby beach. Here you can see the kids lined up on the beach from tallest to shortest. From left to right: Elizabeth Fison, Peter's brother Richard, Peter, Gay Fison, and Peter's youngest brother, David. Peter doesn't remember why his brother Hugh is not in this picture. Perhaps he was taking the photo.

Here's a picture from 1937. One of Peter's aunts had a home on the Sussex coast at Littlestone, and Peter's family used to go there during school vacations. Peter remembers that they used to play a lot of games there, including a family version of hide-and-seek. Here you can see them taking a break for some ice cream. From left to right: Peter's cousin Anthony Butterwick, Richard, Peter, and Hugh. David was too young then to play these sorts of games.

When the German invasion of England looked imminent, St. Ronan's was evacuated to Bicton Park, a great red-brick Georgian house in the idyllic setting of a large deer park in Devon. Peter's novel
Hindsight
is based on his time here. The curriculum was mainly Latin, Greek, and math, with some French, history, and geography, and only one English class a week. Peter was never asked to write a story, either while at St. Ronan's or later.

In 1941 Peter took the scholarship exam for Eton against the advice of Dick Harris, who thought he wasn't up to it. But his math score saved him, even though he was the bottom scholar in a bad year, just as his father had been, and he was accepted. After an uncertain start at Eton, Peter enjoyed his time there. He turned out to be fairly good at the bizarre versions of soccer they played, and was elected to Pop, the equally bizarre society of school prefects chosen not by the authorities but by the students themselves.

In 1948 Peter went to King's College, Cambridge, on a closed exhibition (a minor sort of scholarship, exclusive to Etonians). He feels he wasted his time there and worked ineffectually, having taken little part in the many extracurricular activities on offer. After a year he switched from classics to English studies. He failed to get the hoped-for first in his finals, but the college gave him a bursary to study for a PhD. Halfway through this, he walked into the dean's office. The dean looked up from the letter he was reading and asked, “Would you like a job on
Punch
?”

Peter Dickinson at an editorial meeting at
Punch
in the early 1950s. (Photo credit:
Picture Post
, Bert Hardy)

Peter and Mary Rose Barnard (1926–1988) were married at Bramdean, Hampshire, on April 26, 1953. She was the daughter of a naval officer who was senior enough to ride a white horse along with the other Lords of the Admiralty in the coronation procession for Queen Elizabeth. Peter and Mary set up house in an apartment in Pimlico, he continuing at
Punch
and she working in the display department of Heal's furniture store.

In 1955 Philippa Dickinson was born at Wingrave, near Aylesbury, Bucks; Polly arrived thirteen months later in a small house behind Harrods in London; John came five years after that; and James followed eighteen months after John in the terrace house in Notting Dale, London, where the family lived for the next twenty years. Here the family is pictured at the weekend cottage on a hill above Crondall, Hampshire, with a marvelous view northeastward over the village and across miles of countryside. This is the setting for
The Devil's Children, the third
book in
the Changes
Trilogy.