The stage actress, 41, who played Cherie Blair in the film The Queen, recalls an idyllic childhood among snakes and sea urchins in Tanzania
Between the ages of six and nine, in the mid-1970s, I lived at 86 Haile Selassie Road in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. My father worked for the Foreign Office, and was posted there from Cameroon, which is practically 100% humidity, so we arrived mouldy with boils into the dry heat, which was beautiful.
The house was two storeys, painted white, with a horseshoe gravel drive. We never went into the right side of the garden: that was where the army ants lived. On the left were trees that we climbed; my father built a castle out of boxes and sprayed it silver.
A monitor lizard lived in the back garden; we’d lie on the ground and look at its eyes. We had monkeys at the front and love birds in the roof, which hopped all over the lawn in the morning.
Joseph, our cook, lived in a compound at the back with Bahari, his son. Bahari was a fantastic football player because he walked with a hobbled gait, which meant that, when he was dribbling, you never knew which way he would go. I loved sports, so Bahari and I played football all day. Apende, our ayah [nanny], seemed 1,000 years old, but my God she could move. One day, there was a snake in the kitchen. She ran in and whacked the shit out of it. My mum said: “Is it poisonous?” Apende said: “We kill first, ask later.”
My father would say, ‘Sleep tight. Don’t get out of bed, you don’t want to touch the snakes on the floor’ Behind the house was bush. Once, I stole a machete and went off with my brother, Jonny, and his friend for an adventure — and we accidentally cut a beehive in half.
I ran, screaming, back to the house, with bees chasing us. I was fine, my brother had 10 stings, but his friend had dozens.
It was made all right: we got to go to the nearby garage to have ice cream. There was ice cream in Dar about every four months. The house had an enormous veranda and, with the French windows open, my parents would sit with friends and play the theme music from Un Homme et une femme, while my friend Nicky and I rollerskated back and forth.
I remember the smell of Rive Gauche, my mum with a beehive and silk kaftan, and my dad in a batik shirt.
Home was just somewhere we slept. I shared a room with Jonny, who’s two years younger. It was plain white, with mosquito nets; our parents would sing us lullabies. Then my father would say, “Sleep tight. Don’t get out of bed, you don’t want to touch the snakes on the floor.” In the mornings, we went to the international school. For some reason, we trailed toilet rolls out the back windows of the school bus, trying to get cars to crash.
In front of us was Oyster Bay, but we went swimming at the yacht club instead: it had a coral reef, so you weren’t too worried about sharks. It sounds rather colonial, but it was basically an upmarket burger joint. Nicky and I had a whole world down among the sea urchins: we had a king and queen sea urchin, and, on our last day in Tanzania, I vividly remember bowing to them.
We also went riding at the Sunny Horse Ranch. It was run by Major Sparrow, who taught us to ride like members of the Household Cavalry. You’d start off on a tiny Shetland pony called Georgie Harrison, which had mange, so it was completely bald apart from a couple of tufts.
It was an amazing childhood. There was a wildness about it. I was shocked when we came to Britain when my mum was pregnant with my sister. I was confused that children wanted to be adults, to wear make-up and smoke. My idea of naughtiness was to go up onto cliffs and practise our swallow dives. I had no interest in smoking, boys and hair. I’m a bit like that now! I don’t sit and think, “Do I want a straighter nose?” I’m sure that’s because of Africa.
Helen McCrory stars in The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse, London WC2, from May 27