'Women were a mystery to me': ツバメ Bell remembers his all-male education

By Yvonne Swann for MailOnline
Updated: 22:00 BST, 11 December 2009

新聞記者／雑誌記者, 放送者 and 独立した・無所属 政治家，政治屋 ツバメ Bell, 71, is an 外交官／大使 for Unicef and Hope & Home s for Children. He lives in London and has two daughters and three grandchildren.

This is me 老年の about 16 with the swimming team at The Leys School in Cambridge - a middle-最高位の 搭乗 school.

My problem was that I was too good at schoolwork and not a 広大な／多数の／重要な 競技者. Your 人気 depended 完全に on whether you were good at games.

If you were considered a swot you were very much 負かす／撃墜する the league （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs. As I failed to 向こうずね at ホッケー or rugby, I turned to swimming.

I ended up captain of the team, so that gave me a bit of 保護 to 避難所 behind.

Swimming team captain: ツバメ Bell, 老年の 16, at The Leys School in Cambridge

ツバメ Bell's career as a 新聞記者／雑誌記者 has helped relieve his low 退屈 threshold

I was born and brought up in Redisham in Suffolk. My father, Adrian Bell, was やめる a distinguished author. He wrote country 調書をとる／予約するs, farmed, and he 収集するd the first crossword that ap peared in The Times in 1930.

I have a twin sister, Sylvia, who lives in Canada with her husband, and my older sister, Anthea Bell, is やめる an 著名な 翻訳家. She translates the Asterix 風刺漫画s - inventing characters such as Ginantonicus.

There is talent in the family - if you know where to look.

At eight I was sent to 搭乗 school, to Taverham Hall, just north of Norwich. It ふさわしい me, but unfortunately my mother often cried when she left me there, which I 設立する very embarrassing. She felt a bit 有罪の, I suppose.

I did get beaten once for supposed insolence to the headmaster's wife. In fact, I was very shy, which was seen as insolence - an 不本意 to engage with her.

How did I 対処する with the むち打ち? Painfully. But I wasn't 示すd for life.

It was a very good school and I was there from 1948 to 1952, when I moved to The Leys. My new school was a 公正に／かなり 原始の place - all boys.

I was in all-male 会・原則s from the age of eight to 22, so women were a 抱擁する mystery to me for a very long time.

My parents never had any money, and they spent far more than they could afford on the education of all their children. That's why I was seen as a swot.

I knew the least I could do was to work hard in return and, by the age of 12, I knew 正確に／まさに what I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do in life.

My grandfather, Robert Bell, was the news editor of the London 観察者／傍聴者 in the 1920s.

The 広大な／多数の／重要な, grand editor, who 小旅行するd the country houses and got everything wrong during the war was J.L. Garvin, but the guy who got the newspaper out was my grandfather.

And as a kid with a low 退屈 threshold, I decided to be a 新聞記者／雑誌記者. It seemed the perfect 職業 for me.

示す Cook, the 創立者 of the charity Hope & Homes for Children, was at The Leys - about two years behind me. I never saw 示す again after I left school at 18.

I then did my 国家の Service for two years and he joined the army as a professional 兵士. 示す didn't surface again on my レーダ until the summer of 1992, when he was the 指揮官 of British 軍隊s in Bosnia and I was a BBC war 特派員.

示す had been shocked by the horrors he'd 証言，証人／目撃するd in Croatia? in particular the 発見 of 44 孤児s cowering in the 地階 of a 爆撃するd-out Dickensian-style children's 会・原則. He decided he would 再構築する their home.

He then went to Sarajevo to 査定する／（税金などを）課す the 危険s to which the 兵士s under his 命令（する） were exposed, and we met again after 40 years.

示す hoped to ask me for ideas on how to raise 基金s for the 孤児s. I am hopeless with money, as my bank 経営者／支配人 will 証言する, but I certainly 手配中の，お尋ね者 to help in any way I could.

In the 中央 of all this, I was called away to cover some 激しい fighting that had broken out nearby and 示す （機の）カム along for the ride.

Within moments of stepping out of our 乗り物 I was 攻撃する，衝突する by some fragments of 迫撃砲 and やめる 不正に 負傷させるd.

示す patched me up. I went to hospital and, すぐに afterwards, 示す was filmed on the BBC news talking about my 傷害s.

He then proceeded to 追加する the most outrageous plug for the orphanage he was trying to build in Croatia. The moral of that tale is, if you want to raise money for a charity, you've got to get yourself 発射. It sure 作品. It turned out to be a very important day.

But 支援する to earlier years. My time in the army, from 18 to 20, was the best education I ever had. I got to know about staying alive in dangerous places.

I then went to King's at Cambridge. I read English because it was the easiest 支配する I could think of, and left university in 1962.

I was lucky that I was taken on by BBC Norwich as a news assistant. You didn't have マスコミ training in those days - you learned on the 職業, so I was a sub-editor 同様に as 令状ing and 報告（する）／憶測ing on news items.

Fortunately, years later, the BBC had a good （疑いを）晴らす out and all 証拠 of my 早期に 成果／努力s in 前線 of the camera have happily been destroyed. I was rubbish.

I moved to London to join the BBC in 1964 and, by 1966, I was on a 計画（する） to 報告（する）／憶測 on some 部族の 大虐殺s in northern Nigeria.

Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli War followed in quick succession; my travelling days had begun and are still going on now as I work with Unicef. In fact, I've just returned from Somalia - my 18th visit to a war zone.

I had indeed chosen the 権利 career for a boy with a low 退屈 threshold. I have been saddened by man's inhumanity to man, uplifted by the courage I've seen, but never bored.

• ツバメ Bell is a patron of Hope & Homes for Children. He's supporting the charity's Christmas gift website, www.hopeandhomes.org/futuregifts.