1 Sitting next to Somerset Maugham at a luncheon one day in the 'fifties , at the house of Lady Headfort , the famous ex-Gaiety Girl , I asked him if he had felt no guilt at using the real lives of the young men and women he had met in Malaya in such detail that they were easily recognisable .sx In particular I asked him about the heroine of his play The Letter who had shot her lover six times , and whose great - nephew and niece I had taught in the jungle when I was sixteen .sx " You hurt a great many people , " I said .sx Maugham , looking like a bull frog with his mottled leathery skin , turned down mouth and squat body , replied , " My dear Mrs Denison , art is more important than life .sx " .sx I was too much in awe of him to make a reply .sx If I am ever going to write down how life and art have used me , now seems the time to do it .sx I have been married to Michael Denison for over fifty years and have enjoyed it enormously .sx The wedding was in April 1939 and just over a week later , on May 8th , I started on the stage as a professional actress .sx We also started our joint career on that date , playing Simon and Sorel in No e l Coward's Hay Fever , at His Majesty's Theatre , Aberdeen .sx Stewart Granger was our leading man , and his first wife Elspeth March was our leading lady .sx I remember that first night vividly , and the smell of the floor polish in that clean and lovely theatre is still strong in my nose .sx I can also remember Kuala Lumpur as a country town , and Wallingford ( then in Berkshire , now in Oxfordshire ) with 4,000 inhabitants , and a working flour mill in the High Street .sx Women wore hats and gloves to go out of the house .sx Little middle-class girls in private schools wore liberty bodices and straw hats with streamers in the summer - summers that were so hot that sunstroke was not unknown .sx Men raised their hats to women , opened doors for them , offered them their seats in buses and trains and stood when they came into a room .sx As a child I caught tiddlers in the Thames with a little white net and put them in jam jars .sx Children could play all day in the fields and woods , with no fear of rape or abduction .sx I collected birds' eggs ( I shudder at the thought now ) , and butterflies ( worse ) and treacled for moths ( horrible) .sx I also collected live snails and let them loose in the school cloakroom because I loved the multicoloured trails they left behind them .sx Poppies stained the yellow cornfields with scarlet , and when the corn was reaped it was made into stooks which looked like tiny wigwams .sx My mother and father were married in 1910 at St Mary Abbot's Church , Kensington .sx In a contemporary newspaper cutting , he was described as " Mr Arnold Savage Bailey , Solicitor , London , and Advocate and Solicitor of the Straits Settlements , youngest son of the late Mr Alfred Bailey , Barrister-at-Law , and grandson of the late Mr Edward Savage Bailey , President of the Incorporated Law Society " , and she as " Miss Kate Edith Clulow Gray , youngest daughter of the late Mr Samuel Gray , Solicitor , and granddaughter of the late John Clulow , Solicitor to the War Office " - a plethora of lawyers !sx She wore a " gown of ivory cr e-circ pe-de-chine and a court train of ivory moir e lined with chiffon , caught at the waist and shoulders with true lover's knots " .sx Her veil was " lent by Mrs Burt " whoever she may have been , and it covered a wreath of white heather .sx There were eight bridesmaids wearing " dresses of ivory satin and large black crinoline hats , wreathed in purple heather and coloured tulle " .sx Miss Kathleen Clulow Gray , described as my mother's 'niece' , was the train bearer , which comes as a surprise to the present generation of our family , as none of us have ever heard of her .sx My mother and father had their honeymoon in Cornwall and set sail for Malaya where they lived until their deaths .sx Not long ago I was given a silver dressing-table set which belonged to my great-grandmother , and was told that she and my great-grandfather , Mr Edward Savage Bailey ( President of the Law Society ) , spent their whole marriage in a m e nage a-grave trois with a " foreign Count " .sx There were seventeen children ( my grandmother was the eldest ) and when Edward died , her lover ( ?sx ) , his lover ( ?sx ) gave her the set inscribed with her name - Ellen .sx Were some of the children his ?sx All of them ?sx And how in Edward's position in Victoria's reign was such a thing tolerated in society ?sx By the time I was born my father had his own firm , Bannon and Bailey , and had left Singapore to live in the Ampang Road in Kuala Lumpur .sx I was the youngest child and , until I was taken back to England to go to boarding school , I didn't meet my brother and sister .sx They had already been sent 'home' to stay with our Bailey grandmother as Malaya's heat and humidity were considered bad for European children .sx My actual birthplace I am told was the Police Officers' Mess in Venning Road , Kuala Lumpur and the time midnight .sx Perhaps my parents were at a dance there .sx What an inconvenience for them if so !sx But then my birth must have been an inconvenience anyway , as Michael met a woman soon after we were married who was astounded that I was alive and well , because my mother was so reluctant to have me that she was high diving almost until the day of my arrival .sx In an interview for one of the tabloid newspapers lately , I described my mother as unmaternal , and this was translated into unloving , which was not true .sx I am quite certain that she loved me dearly ; in fact the certainty that I had her affection gave me security throughout the years of my childhood without her , and still gives me an inner optimism .sx When she was quite young her mother divorced her father and married a rich Dutchman called Van Lorn .sx It was sensational to have a divorce in the family in those days .sx Somewhere in her childhood she learned not only to become an excellent horsewoman , but how to crack a stock whip , throw a lariat and whistle more beautifully than anyone I have ever heard .sx She was mad on amateur theatricals .sx Later she studied painting under the great Tonks at the Slade , wearing bloomers and her long chestnut hair down to her waist .sx ( Augustus John was briefly enamoured .sx ) She was extremely clever and spoke several languages fluently .sx She had a lovely and distinctive handwriting and indeed quite exquisite hands .sx Later in life she wore a monocle , lace ruffles at the throat and wrists of silk dresses she often made for herself , and special mannish felt hats from Lock's .sx She told us that she was the third Girl Guide - Sir Robert Baden-Powell's sister was the first , a Mrs Jansen-Potts the second and my mother the third .sx When Sir Robert married , his wife became the first and my mother was demoted .sx She " left the movement " .sx My father was small , precise , conventional and always beautifully dressed .sx The attraction of opposites , it seems .sx Compton Mackenzie recognised me as my father's daughter sixty years after they had been to school together at St Paul's , although I was introduced as Dulcie Gray .sx " The same tiny eyes .sx The same wide smile , " he said .sx I never had the feeling that my father had much affection for me , but my mother certainly loved him .sx Every morning as he left for the office , she gave him a buttonhole of the violets she had grown specially for him .sx I remember very little about my first few years in Malaya .sx I had a half-Indian nanny called Nanny Ghouse whom I met again years later when I was acting in Kuala Lumpur for the British Council .sx Every morning she used to take me to the large grass lawn called the 'padang' to play with the other white children in front of the Tudor-style Selangor Club called the Spotted Dog .sx Every morning I demanded to kiss " itou black Uncle " which was a darkish green marble bust of Edward VII standing on a plinth outside the rose-coloured , exuberantly ornate Federal Buildings - the Malayan Parliament .sx I remember being a bridesmaid dressed in a white chiffon dress embroidered with 'pearls' which had a cross-over bodice , and I wore a sort of white doily on my head , also edged with 'pearls' .sx I fought the page for my fair share of the train , and the bride's dog tried to join in .sx I went as a rose-bud to a children's fancy dress party , and for some while was so ill that I was expected to die , although I remember nothing of this last at all .sx When I was three and a half , my parents took me to England on a Japanese ship .sx Ironically , in view of what was to happen to her , my mother loved everything Japanese and for some odd reason detested the Chinese .sx The journey took three weeks .sx I don't remember my father on the trip , only the Japanese captain and crew , an English bully boy , and my mother .sx The first meeting with my brother and sister didn't go quite as planned .sx To my great excitement , an operation had been performed on a passenger during the voyage and while my siblings were away for a few moments I cut open Roger's golliwog , stuffed it with grass , and then had no means of sewing it up .sx A fierce fight ensued .sx Little Gran , as Granny Bailey was called , was tiny .sx She wore a lace cap and carried a silver-topped cane .sx She was very interested in Froebel education and her daughter Dorothy - Auntie D - had been trained as a Froebel teacher .sx She ran a school at my grandmother's house , 79 Onslow Road , Richmond , Surrey , and was never allowed to marry , as being the only girl with six brothers she was supposed to look after Granny , and Granny lived until she was eighty-four .sx Auntie D also had tiny eyes and a wide smile !sx And a round pretty face .sx It was summer in England and our reunited family went down to Cooden for a holiday with Mummy's brother , his wife and our two girl cousins .sx The older children caught butterflies from a buddleia bush and put them into 'stink bottles' .sx Seeing their beautiful wings flapping more and more feebly until they died made me feel ill with horror , and a passionate love for British butterflies was born .sx 2 I suppose my father came with my mother to leave me at St Anthony's , the kindergarten in Wallingford where I was to spend the next eight years , but if so once again I was unaware .sx It was a bitterly cold day and I remember it as snowing .sx Perhaps I went to school late that term , as it certainly wouldn't have been snowing in September .sx It must have been cold though , because I was dressed in a white fur coat and hat and long grey gaiters to just above my knee .sx I had a white fur coat and hat and long grey gaiters to just above my knee .sx I had a white fur muff on a cord round my neck , and carried a small silver knife and fork , which I still have .sx The furs I never saw again .sx The school stood in the middle of Wallingford High Street ; a pleasant whitewashed , three-storeyed Georgian house with green shutters and a green front door .sx My mother told me to ring the bell while she paid the cab , but I couldn't reach it .sx It was the only time I was to use that entrance .sx All pupils went in by a side door which led down a passage into a courtyard between the main building and a pretty little redbrick house .sx At the far end of a redbrick garden path was another charming old redbrick house with a green dovecot which housed a pair of white doves .sx