My mother, Christian Pauline Haynes, was born in Lyminge, Kent on 9th December 1917. I suspect that the name ‘Christian’ was an acknowledgement of her mother’s Scottish roots but she was always known as Pauline.

After leaving school, she joined the Kent Messenger newspaper and trained to be a journalist the ‘old fashioned’ way attending boring Council meetings, local events, weddings and funerals. She met her husband, John, in 1936 at a Peace Camp in Penshurst, Kent and they were married in Holborn, London, on 21st October 1939 just a few weeks after WW2 broke out. In 1940 John was enlisted into the RAF and Pauline joined the Ministry of Information. David came along in December 1941 and spent a lot of time evacuated to relations in Scotland.

I arrived in February 1947 and James followed in October 1953. At that time, we lived in Kensington at what is now a very desirable address – 23 Palace Gardens Terrace. John joined Unilever in India in July 1954 and Pauline, James and I followed in 1955. I always think that the following years in India were the happiest of her life. She was the highly regarded All India correspondent of the now defunct Reynolds News and travelled all over India, Pakistan and even Afghanistan. She interviewed Jawaharlah Pandit Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who went on to become the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan.

On returning from India in 1960, Pauline joined the Central Office of Information. After the family moved to Sevenoaks, she continued to travel to India on assignments funded partly by my generous airline/travel staff discounts! She worked for other publications including ‘Doctor’ magazine and always claimed that a large sherry helped her typing speeds.

In March 1987 she suffered a massive stroke from which she never recovered and she passed away on 21st November 1987 in Sevenoaks hospital aged just 69. Only after she died did we find a horoscope that had been prepared for her by a fortune teller in Madras (now Chennai) in the late 1950’s accurately predicting that she would die unexpectedly at the age of 69.