In September 1925 I undertook the first great adventure of my life: boarding school. My family had chosen a school for me called St. peter's which was across the canal from bristol. 

One morning, my mother and I left in a taxi to board the steamer to cross the canal. all the clothes I was wearing were new and marked with my name. on the gray school jacket and cap, the golden school shield stood out.

roald

roald

roald

In the taxi that took us to the port were my new trunk and my suitcase. both with my name painted in black. My suitcase was a kind of wooden box, very sturdy, and no child ever went to boarding school without carrying it as part of his luggage. 

It was his secret store, and there was an unwritten law that no other student, no teacher, not even the principal himself, had the right to snoop on its contents. The owner had his key in his pocket and would not come out of there.

The suitcase was used to store the provisions that families sent to their hungry children and contained, for example, half a homemade cookie, a couple of oranges, an apple, a chocolate bar and a package of crushed cookies. In addition to provisions, a suitcase could also contain all kinds of treasures, such as a knife, a box of games, tin soldiers, a race car... so we set off, my mother and I, and my personal suitcase . 

we crossed the bristol canal in torrential rain and arrived at st.peter´s. the school was on a mountain overlooking the city. I started to feel restless, I had no idea what was waiting for me there. Until then I had not spent a single night away from my family. I saw the children's driveway with their parents, and their trunks, and their suitcases, and one individual, who I imagined to be the director, was busily walking back and forth through that crowd, shaking hands with everyone.

"Come in and report to the security guard," he snapped. and to my mother he said: - Goodbye ma'am. and send little things to your son from time to time, because children have an appetite... ha ha ha! Send him things whenever he wants. Of course, they'll give you food here, but it never tastes the same as it does at home, does it? My mother nodded, kissed me on the cheek, and left. I stayed there alone. And I burst into tears, with a feeling of nostalgia that I would not have abandoned during the entire course.

At night, when I was overcome by helplessness and longing for my mother and my sisters, I would secretly open my suitcase and take out my compass or any other object that would take me home. in st. peter's the entire ground floor was classrooms. The first floor, all bedrooms. There, the guard exercised the supreme command. Once you went upstairs, you were under the power of the guard, and the source of that power was the invisible but fearsome figure of the headmaster, lurking in the depths of his office.