It's October 1955 and a very travel weary student goes out in the afternoon of first day in Birmingham and having come from a hot country where trees are beautiful, mountains are beautiful his first thought is I’ll climb a tree. So, he climbs a tree and comes down black. That was Birmingham 1955. The black and the wet on him, it’s all soot. The world descends further. The sky goes yellow every couple of days. As winter approaches Birmingham immerses itself in a yellow pea soup of smog. I ride a bicycle along the main road from Bristol to Birmingham to go to university and in the evenings as I ride home, I am followed by a long queue of cars because the fog is so thick, they can’t see the pavement but from a bicycle I still can.

I survived the first trimester. It actually made me sick, sick emotionally, sick physically. For the first time in my life, I failed an exam. I go to see the doctor who says you’re fine, you’ll survive. there's a long story that follows from that, that was the first thing that made me eventually study and teach medicine but never mind let's go back to my first holiday in Birmingham. It's Christmas holidays and I still want my mountains. I still want my outdoors, and somebody says go to Derbyshire it's so beautiful. So, I go to Derbyshire, and I walk up Dovedale. It is beautiful. The river flows along its bottom. I can hear sound of the stream in my ears, the sound I haven't heard for months. The paths weaves their way along the banks, it's not pavements anymore. But the evening draws on and it's time to leave the valley and look for civilization. I look at my map and there is a pub. But this being Derbyshire these are not the mountains that I've been used to, it's a plateau which is dissected by valleys. So, the valleys are empty but above valleys are fields and roads and civilisation and then there is a pub. So, I climb up the side of the valley and I find a minor road with nobody on it. And I walk and I walk and walk until I come to the pub, The Quiet Woman. That's the name of the pub, but guess what’s on the shield? It's a woman with her head tucked underneath her arm, that's the quiet woman. Of course, it's Sunday evening and of course the bloody thing is closed and there is me by The Quiet Woman as it gets dark and empty. My first evening in Derbyshire

Anyway, I survived. I walked on. I found somewhere to sleep. I walked on next day and the next day. Along more beautiful valleys and arrive at Edale Youth Hostel delighted with myself, delighted that the world isn't all just city smog and ready to continue my first year and ready to look forward to my next exploration because I was told that the Cairngorms are really the place to go, they are really amazing. So, I survived the first year. I was allowed to retake the exam that I failed and passed.

Now it is July and I hitchhike to Braemar. I reach Braemar on Saturday afternoon. There is a hill above Braemar. I’ve got a tent, so up I go onto the hill. I pitch my tent. It’s a sunny, sunny evening and somebody starts playing the bagpipes below and what could be more romantic, what could be more beautiful than a warm summer’s evening. Bagpipes playing and I'm back again in paradise. Next morning, I set out for the hills. This time there is no smog, and the trees are not black. I walk along a valley and eventually I get to a corrugated tin hut called Colonel Hutchinson’s Hut, a refuge for walkers. There is firewood ready to be lit. There are tins on the shelves that other walkers have left. So, I can eat some of mine and some of theirs. A real paradise, I wake up next morning and there is a herd of deer outside the door outside the window. What a wonderful place. I set off and within two hours the fog has come down, so I walk on but this time on compass bearings, visiting one hilltop after another, not seeing anything, but then a figure comes out of the mist. As it draws near me it says have you seen any reindeer sir? Reindeer! The man is lost. He was in Lapland! How does he walk from Lapland to Scotland? Hairs are standing on end at the back of my head in case this man was crazy, but no he approaches. He is friendly. He doesn't seem completely irrational and so I learn about the little herd of reindeer. A Norwegian resistance fighter from the Second World War, Mr Utzi, decided to establish them in the Cairngorms and so then I become a reindeer herder. I get my food paid. I've got a perch in a barn and every morning I go out in the completely misty Cairngorms looking for reindeer. Sometimes, sometimes I see them. There is one little patch on Ben Macdui which the snow can stay all the year around and that is where I go and I see these ten reindeer in a circle looking with longing, at a little patch of snow. I spent a month there until one morning as I join the forestry workers for breakfast. I see a Scottish policeman who's asking after me and I realise that I am a foreigner and my visa is expired. I was very politely told that I need to go back and present myself to the Foreign Office to get my visa extended polite, nice. I go to spend the day again with the reindeer and in the evening I packed my rucksack and about 11:00 o'clock at night I set off from Loch Morlich to catch the train to go South, through beautiful quiet moonlit nights, through the forest, through paths. Distant hills outline the land. There are even stars. I'm beginning to feel at home even though my next assignment was with the Foreign office to see if I can get a visa.

That was my first year in UK