Estate House

Although my father was the company's land surveyor, he had also been put in charge of a very small dairy herd belonging to the company that supplied fresh milk to the employees and no doubt the offices for the tea and coffee!

This dairy was situated on the road between Palo Seco village and Beach Camp, if I remember correctly on the right-hand side heading south, up on a rise/hill. He was later in the late 60s to build a much larger new dairy for BP.

He was given the responsibility as he came from a Norfolk farming family. This same logic also made the company give him responsibility for the entire agricultural interests which were a spin-off of the acquisition of land for oil exploration. The estate consisted of coffee, cocoa, banana, orange and lime plantations, just the sort of crops any self-respecting Norfolk farmer knew like the way to Norwich Cattle Market on a Wednesday.

The estate involved quite a bit of work and not just the part-time few hours a week of the dairy. And for this, there was a separate estate house which I sadly no longer know exactly where it was but somewhere north of Palo Seco village, standing alone with the farm buildings.

And so for a couple of years, we moved out of Beach Camp and up to the estate house. I don't remember this time but my parents would often recall that I spent much of my time out with the estate workers taking rides on a trailer behind the tractor. I am sure I must have been attending kindergarten somewhere but apparently, I learnt quite a bit from the workers and could swear like a trooper at the age of 3.

Not sure if it was a perk of the job, but my father would bring home the odd sack of oranges, limes and if I was lucky, delicious small bananas.