Pat recalled that: “Growing up, there was the fresh smell of the harbour, the salt on the air and the magnolia at night, the scent of jasmine – all the heavy smells on the summer air, and sitting on warm sandstone steps talking to your friends on a summer night – it was a lovely childhood.” Pat’s father was German. Her parents were intellectuals, who met in London before World War I. Pat’s father returned from the war shell-shocked, and her parents eventually divorced. At the Cross, Pat and her mother lived in the elegant boarding houses: ‘Dunrobin’ and ‘Kinneil’: “In the winter there was a lovely roaring log fire in the dining room. And we had tea and cakes and bread and butter. … They rang a bell at half past six, a dressing bell, and everyone had to go and have a shower and get dressed into some glamorous dress. So I had nice dresses to wear for dinner at night. And at seven o’clock you went down to dinner. After dinner they always served coffee on the tray mobile in the sitting room in little demi tasse cups and elegant china. And after that fresh fruit and finger bowls were brought in.”