Snake Charmers and the Scent of Orange Blossom

On St Valentine’s Day 1970, having left England in the opaque grip of freezing fog, my husband David and I stepped out of the plane at Marrakech in Morocco and breathed in the caressing scent of orange blossom. I was nearly seven months pregnant with my second child. We stayed within the peach-coloured mud walls of the city at the celebrated Mamounia Hotel, decorated and furnished in a glamorous mixture of Moorish and Art Deco styles, and set in twenty acres of wonderful gardens. The hotel had accommodated statesmen, political leaders and film stars over the decades. From its opening in 1923 until the Second World War, guests would come for long periods to escape the cold of Northern Europe - often the whole winter, bringing their own furnishings. Perhaps the most well known visitor was Winston Churchill, who stayed regularly during the winters of the 1930s and painted the gardens he loved from various points, in different lights.