'I was eighteen when I first read those words. My train was running into Rye station and I was knocked out the ashes of my first pipe of shag tobacco... My first book had just been published. I was going courting. My book had earned ten pounds. I desired to be a subaltern in H. B. M's army. The story was Mr Kipling's "Only a subaltern". The next station would be Winchelsea, where I was to descend.'