The year is 1956, and the small boy in the middle of the photo, clutching a battered teddy, plus what appears to be a bag of laundry, is me. I don’t look very well, do I? But, to be fair, I am about to leave England where no-one is particularly well. The stylish woman to my right is my mother. She is wearing her look of sufferance, since she doesn’t want to make this journey. The man behind me is my father. His expression seems to be one of boyish excitement with maybe a tinge of triumph.

And me? That expression manages to make me appear both inscrutable and an open book. Clearly I have no idea where I am going. It’s almost as if I am asking the photographer: do you know where I’m going?

Well, to be precise, I am going to Australia. We are boarding the Fairsea, a particularly ironic name as it transpired. This ship was part of the SITMAR line who, after the war, converted their cargo carriers to passenger ships and did very well transporting migrants from the miseries of Europe and England to the sunny climes of the new world. The Fairsea was not exactly the jewel in the crown of the SITMAR line – the standard joke among the adults was that it would ‘roll on wet grass’. Since we were British, most of us had had little experience with water in its many forms, so seasickness quickly became a fact of life. Passengers lived in segregated quarters; I spent the entire voyage sharing a cabin with my father and 10 other males, the only light being a blue hurricane lamp, which never seemed to get turned off. Our cabin was below the water line and held a constant aroma of vomit and bunker fuel. SITMAR proudly referred to the Fairsea as a cruise ship.

1956 was a very good year for some. It could be considered the year that white rock n roll was born. Elvis Presley entered the charts for the first time with ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, topping Billboard for seven weeks. In the same year he released a gold album and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Also, someone I admire greatly was born in 1956 – John Joseph Lydon, later to be known by his stage name: Johnny Rotten.

But 1956 was a very bad year for Britain (in addition to the ominous birth of Johnny Rotten, I mean), because it was the year the British Empire effectively ended. Britain had occupied Egypt in one form or another, since 1882. But the current president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, refused to play the role of good little colonial deputy. When the US suddenly withdrew financial support for the Assan Dam project, Nasser’s response was to nationalize the Suez Canal. This so alarmed Britain that in cahoots with France, and Israel, they secretly hatched a plan to invade Egypt, take over the Suez, and depose Nasser. By October 31 the UK and France were bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Canal. By November 6 the first Royal Marines came ashore at Port Said. All these events were taking place as the Fairsea wended its way across the Mediterranean towards the Suez. When we finally arrived, the Fairsea was the last ship to be let through the canal by the occupying forces. At Port Said a lot of soldiers boarded our vessel, shouting pointlessly at everyone. This was when I saw my first real gun. But the ‘tripartite invasion’ (as it came to be known) had no support from the Eisenhower Administration or the United Nations. ‘Bad dog!” said the UN, sternly wagging its finger, and the British bulldog withdrew from the region with it’s tail between its legs, and never really strutted the world stage again. Meanwhile, we sailed on to Australia.

And I still have no idea where I’m going.