Editing Gerald Durrell (section)

== Early life and education ==

Durrell was born in [[Jamshedpur]], [[British Raj|British India]], on 7 January 1925.  His father, [[Lawrence Samuel Durrell]], was a civil engineer; his mother was [[Louisa Durrell|Louisa Florence Durrell]] ({{Nee|Dixie}}).  He had two older brothers, [[Lawrence Durrell|Lawrence]] and [[Durrell family|Leslie]], and an older sister, [[Margaret Durrell|Margaret]].  Another sister, Margery, had died in infancy.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 3.</ref> His parents were both born in India: his mother's family were Irish Protestants from [[County Cork|Cork]], and his father's father, who was from [[Suffolk]], had come to India and married an Anglo-Irish woman. Durrell's father insisted that Louisa leave household chores and parenting duties to the Indian servants, as was expected of Anglo-Indian women of the day, but she was more independent than he wished.  She spent much time with her cook, learning to make curries, and had trained as a nurse.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 4–6.</ref>  It was usual for Anglo-Indian parents to see little of their children, and the household included an ''[[Amah (occupation)|ayah]]'' (an Indian nursemaid) who helped raise the children, and a Catholic governess.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 8.</ref>

When Durrell was fourteen months old, the family left Jamshedpur and sailed to Britain, where his father bought a house in [[Dulwich]], in south London, near where both the older boys were at school.  They returned to India in late 1926 or early 1927, settling in [[Lahore]], where Lawrence had contract work.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 8–9.</ref>  It was in Lahore that Gerald's fascination with animals began, first when he saw two large [[slug]]s entwined in a ditch, and later when he visited the [[Lahore Zoo|zoo in Lahore]].  He was entranced by the zoo, later recalling "The zoo was in fact very tiny and the cages minuscule and probably never cleaned out, and certainly if I saw the zoo today I would be the first to have it closed down, but as a child it was a magic place.  Having been there once, nothing could keep me away."<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 9–10.</ref>  The Durrells also briefly owned a pair of Himalayan bear cubs, given to them by Louisa's brother John, a hunter.  Louisa soon decided they were too dangerous, and gave them to the zoo.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 11.</ref>

Durrell's father fell ill in early 1928, and died of a [[cerebral hemorrhage|cerebral haemorrhage]] on 16 April.  Louisa was devastated by his death, but Gerald was scarcely affected, having been much closer to his mother and his ''ayah'' than his father, who had often been absent as his work had taken him all over British India.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 11–13.</ref>  Louisa considered keeping the family in India, but finally decided to move back to the UK, and they sailed back from [[Mumbai|Bombay]].<ref>Botting (1999), p. 13.</ref>  The house in Dulwich that Lawrence had bought in 1926 was large and expensive to run, and in 1930 Louisa moved the family to a flat attached to the [[Queen's Hotel, Upper Norwood|Queen's Hotel]] in [[Upper Norwood]], also in south London.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 15.</ref>  Early the following year they moved to [[Parkstone]], near [[Bournemouth]].<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 17–18.</ref>  Louisa was lonely with just Gerald for company; the other three children were at school or studying elsewhere.  Durrell later recalled that she began "resorting to the bottle more and more frequently" and eventually had "what in those days was called a 'nervous breakdown{{' "}}.{{#tag:ref|Louisa had booked a passage, sailing on 29 October, back to India for herself and Gerald, but they never boarded the ship and it is possible that a family member found out her plans and prevented them from leaving.<ref>Haag (2017), p. 36.</ref>|group=note}}  He was left alone in the house except for a governess, brought in until Louisa returned, at which point he was sent to a kindergarten nearby instead.  He enjoyed his time there, particularly because one of the teachers encouraged his interest in natural history, bringing in an aquarium with goldfish and [[pond snails]].<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 18–20.</ref>

In 1932 Louisa moved them again, to a smaller house in Bournemouth, and the following year she enrolled him at Wychwood School.  Gerald loathed the school; the only lessons he enjoyed were in natural history.  He would scream and struggle to avoid going.<ref name=":0" />  When he was nine he was [[Spanking|spanked]] by his headmaster, and his mother took him away from the school.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Haag (2017), pp. 46–48.</ref> She bought him a dog, which he named Roger, as compensation for his traumatic time there.<ref name=":0">Botting (1999), pp. 20–22.</ref>  He never received any further formal education,<ref name=":0" /> though he intermittently had tutors.<ref name=":2">Botting (1999), pp. 56–58.</ref>

=== Corfu ===
Gerald's brother Lawrence and his partner, Nancy,{{#tag:ref|Lawrence and Nancy married in secret in January 1935.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 29.</ref>|group = note}} were living with friends of theirs, George and Pam Wilkinson, in 1934.  At the end of the year, the Wilkinsons emigrated to the Greek island of [[Corfu]], and Lawrence and Nancy moved in with Louisa and Gerald.  George wrote to Lawrence about Corfu in glowing terms, and first Lawrence and then the rest of the family took up the idea of moving there.  Gerald and Lawrence later gave varying accounts of how the decision was reached: the poor English climate, Louisa's growing dependence on alcohol, and financial problems may all have played a part.  Michael Haag, in his account of the Durrells' time in Corfu, suggests that Louisa's drinking was the reason Lawrence felt he could not move to Corfu unless Louisa did also.<ref>Haag (2017), pp. 53–54.</ref><ref name=":1">Botting (1999), pp. 27–28.</ref>  Lawrence and Nancy left England on 2 March 1935, and the rest of the family followed five days later, reaching Corfu later that month.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 29–30.</ref>

Lawrence and Nancy moved into a house in  {{ill|Perama (Corfu)|sv|Pérama (ort i Grekland, Joniska öarna)|lt=Pérama}}, near the Wilkinsons, and the rest of the family stayed in the Pension Suisse in [[Corfu Town|Corfu town]] for a few days, house-hunting.  They met Spiro Chalikiopoulos, who found them a villa near Lawrence and Nancy, and became a close family friend.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 32–35.</ref>  Gerald fell in love with Corfu as soon as they moved out of the town, and spent his days exploring, with a butterfly net and empty matchboxes in which to bring home his finds.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 40–41.</ref>  Louisa soon decided he needed to continue his education, and hired George to tutor him in the mornings, but Gerald was a poor student.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 42–43.</ref>

{{Quote box
| quote = If I had the power of magic, I would confer two gifts on every child{{mdash}}the enchanted childhood I had on the island of Corfu, and to be guided and befriended by Theodore Stephanides.
| source = {{mdash}}Gerald Durrell<ref>Botting (1999), p. 48.</ref>
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George was friends with [[Theodore Stephanides]], a [[Polymath|polymathic]] Greek–British doctor and scientist, whom he introduced to Gerald.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 44–48.</ref>  Stephanides spent a half-day every week with Gerald, walking in the countryside and talking to him about natural history, among many other topics.  He was enormously influential on Gerald, and helped to encourage and systematise Gerald's love of the natural world.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 47–49.</ref>  Gerald collected animals of all kinds, keeping them in the villa in whatever containers he could find, sometimes causing an uproar in the family when they discovered water snakes in the bath or scorpions in matchboxes.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 53–55.</ref>  Stephanides's daughter, Alexia, who was a little younger than Gerald,{{#tag:ref|Durrell's biographer, Douglas Botting, records that she was seven years old in January 1937, which would have made her five years younger than Gerald, but Haag quotes her in 2017 as saying she was then 90 years old.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 66–67.</ref><ref name="Haag2017a" />|group = note}} became his closest friend,<ref>Haag (2017), p. 89.</ref><ref>Botting (1999), p. 70.</ref> and the families of each hoped that the two would one day marry.<ref name="Haag2017a">Haag (15 April 2017)</ref><ref>Haag (2017), pp. 101–102.</ref>

In late 1935 the family moved to a villa near [[Kontokali]], not far north of Corfu town.<ref>Haag (2017), p. 91.</ref>  Gerald's education continued to be haphazard, with tutors who were unable to interest him.{{#tag:ref|These included Pat Evans, a friend of Lawrence's, who was dismissed, according to Gerald, because he and Margaret were becoming attached to each other; the Belgian consul in Corfu town, who attempted to teach Gerald French; and a Polish exile named Krajewski.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 56, 65–66.</ref>|group = note}}  Lawrence encouraged Gerald to read widely, giving him an eclectic selection of books, from the unexpurgated version of ''[[Lady Chatterley's Lover]]'' to [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]].  Among the books were [[Jean-Henri Fabre]]'s ''Insect Life'' and ''The Life and Love of the Insects'', which Gerald found entrancing;<ref name=":2" /> naturalists such as Fabre, Darwin, [[Alfred Russel Wallace]] and [[Gilbert White]] became his heroes.<ref>Durrell (1973), p. ix.</ref>  Equally influential was a copy of ''Wide World'', an adventure magazine, which Leslie lent him: it contained an account of an animal-collecting expedition to the [[Cameroons]], in west Africa, led by Percy Sladen, and gave Gerald the ambition of someday doing the same.<ref name=":2"/>  Leslie and Lawrence each owned boats, and Gerald was given a small rowing boat as a birthday present.  It was christened the ''Bootle-Bumtrinket'', and Gerald added trips along the coast to his excursions through the countryside.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 62–64.</ref>

Late in 1937 the family moved again, this time to a villa overlooking Halikiopoulou Lagoon that had been built as a residence for the British governor of the [[United States of the Ionian Islands|Ionian Islands]].<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 68, 108–109.</ref>  Stephanides left the island for a job in Cyprus in early 1938, though his wife and daughter stayed in Corfu, and Margaret returned to England the following year. In mid-1939, with war looking increasingly likely, Louisa was warned by her London bank that if she did not return to England she would have no access to her funds if hostilities broke out.  Louisa, Leslie, Gerald, and Maria Condos, the family's maid, left Corfu for England in June.  Margaret briefly returned; Lawrence and Nancy waited to leave until after war was declared, and Margaret finally left after Christmas.<ref>Botting (1999), pp. 69–72.</ref>{{#tag:ref|Lawrence and Nancy left for Athens and then Alexandria; Nancy was subsequently evacuated to Palestine.  Margaret married in 1940 and went with her husband when he was posted to Africa.<ref>Botting (1999), p. 76.</ref>|group = note}}