As an eleven-year old Malcolm lived in Nigeria where his father had taken up a post as a District Veterinary Officer. Over the two years he was there, the family built up a menagerie of pets which included an African bush dog that saved his mother’s life, a black cat called Sooty that was nearly killed in a car accident and an African grey parrot which his father had to operate on when it developed a tumour on its neck.
Malcolm encountered a cobra in the bathroom and in his treehouse, a rock python that escaped in the house and an invasion of soldier ants that passed through his bedroom one night. He helped his father to operate on a camel with an infected foot belonging to a travelling trader and at the local zoo, watched as his father extracted a canine tooth from a Patas monkey and operated on a gored ostrich.
All these encounters helped to encourage and develop Malcolm’s love of animals and when he had to return to England for further schooling, he carried with him memories of those exciting times.