My nephew’s girlfriend spoke with all the assurance of an attractive woman conscious of her admiring audience. “My mother,” she explained, “wanted to call me Jane but decided against it in case I grew up plain.” Her listeners, seated around the dinner table, made it obvious that any idea of her being plain was ridiculous. The conversation continued with her as the main topic. We heard when her legs needed waxing and whether or not she was wearing knickers.

We were visiting Malta, my umpteenth time over a great many years and were at a friend’s house. I poured another glass of wine and reflected on the unfairness of life. My mother had also wanted to call me Jane but the choice had been vetoed by my grandfather in favour of my grandmother’s name. It was just as well, for I grew up plain and have gone through life as a Plain Jane – with all the problems that brings.

Conceived in the days before antibiotics, I developed an infection in the womb and so was born with a discharge from the eyes. This cleared up after three weeks, but the infection had affected the eyelids and made it impossible to open the eyes to their full extent, leaving them flat and almost Mongol in appearance. Although I was not unattractive in other ways, the facial disfigurement dominated all. In the 21st century there are plastic surgery techniques to repair such mistakes. Indeed, a couple of years ago, discussing vision problems with an eye consultant, I was offered surgery by an enthusiastic Registrar. I refused the offer. It was 50 years too late.

Recent American research argues that the emphasis on being pretty as portrayed by the old Fairy Tales, such as Sleeping Beauty, and the present cult of Barbie, may both be ‘bad for little girls’. The research suggests that girls who concentrate on being pretty may miss out on careers – except where beauty is the basis of the career. While girls who do not conform to society’s idea of what is attractive may be disadvantaged. I’d go along with that.

As I grew up other children would tease me asking why I had such little eyes or pull their own eyelids into an approximation of mine and chant ‘Chinky, Chinky Chinaman Chop, Chop, Chop’ from the words of a then popular song. My father delighted in calling me ‘gig lamps’ his school nickname for other unfortunate spectacle wearers as the glasses were supposed to look like lamps on horse drawn carriages.

I didn’t like my father very much. His little parlour trick was to duck my head in the water but if he found me in the garden. I kept out of his way as much as possible. My parents’ marriage was on the rocks.

My mother, seeing that father was not going to provide, had gone to be a nanny to a family on leave from the old Ceylon, leaving father and me with my paternal grandparents.

My Aunty Nancy, my father’s unmarried sister also lived at home during the school holidays. The upheavals of WW1 had given her middle-class generation the option of a working independence rather than waiting at home for an offer of marriage. Aunty had trained as a PE teacher – she played a lethal game of lacrosse, a sort of mediaeval warfare based on hockey – but regarded any attention to personal appearances as vanity and this was firmly discouraged. I wore what I was told to wear. My hair, always fine and difficult, was unbecomingly short while the other girls had ribbons and plaits. My nails were always cut as short as possible.

By then, I was wearing round wire spectacles with thick lenses.

There was no counselling in those far-off days but, fortunately, I had no lack of self-esteem and developed strategies for dealing with both my father and my tormentors. My father relied on his mother for money to spend and was fearful of upsetting her so I could use the threat of ‘telling Granny’ to keep him in line. It took longer to sort out the cruelty of peers but eventually an ability to raise a laugh from a situation and a quickly developed cynicism all helped. I must have been about 12 years old when my grandmother pointed out that I’d better think of training for a career as nobody would want to marry me as I wasn’t pretty. She was complaining about the size of my thighs at the time. In fact my thighs were not large. I had shapely legs they were about the only bit of my anatomy that was OK.

At that time the choice of career for a woman was limited mainly to teaching, nursing and secretarial work. Nowadays I would have gone into my grandfather’s law firm and terrified the daylights out of the assize judges!

I knew that if I couldn’t be pretty I’d bloody well better be clever. I worked on that, got good exam results and went to college to train as a teacher. It came at a cost as I exchanged one female community for another. The town heaved with troops but we were kept firmly under lock and key and not allowed out except in daytime and then only in groups of three. I doubt if anyone flouted the rules – we were more biddable then and the idea that life could be fun was firmly discouraged.

Gaining a diploma I went to teach in a girls’ boarding school. Some dull years passed for we were expected to dress, and behave, like our mothers – look at the photos of the young Princess Elizabeth – and the idea of teenagers had yet to be invented.

I escaped to Africa – it was the end of Empire but salaries and conditions were still there for the ex-pat and I taught for six years in what is now Zimbabwe and then in Kenya. I collected a boyfriend in Zim – a white police trooper – but he soon moved on to a telephonist in Harare who was pretty and much more obliging than I was. I may not have had much social life but I did see the sights that are now tourist attractions – the Victoria Falls and the Mountains of the Moon as well as seeing big game in quantity – but the male of the species eluded me.

I travelled back from Africa on a flight that included a stopover in Malta. Nearly 50 years on, I still remember exploring Mdina in the winter sunshine and dancing the night away at the Phoenicia.

Back in the UK I became deputy head of a primary school. I still had no looks but a good salary and my own house and car gave me style. I even got a proposal of a sort. The mother of one of the children in my class died of cancer and, after a decent interval, the father looked for a replacement. The kids were pleasant and the father presentable, with his own house and business. It was certainly not a love match but I accepted his overtures and, at length, an invitation to dinner. He’d made the effort. There were flowers, and wine and candles on the table and the kids were with grandma. The big moment came. “I think we’d do all right together,” he said, “you’re not particularly pretty and you’re getting old,” (I was aged 32 at the time) and I reckon that I’m your Last Chance for marriage. What about it?” I finished my wine with as much dignity as I could muster. Gritted my teeth over the Last Chance gibe. Said I would think about his offer – think? Think? And made my escape. Last Chance indeed!

At about the same time, a farmer whom I’d met through Africa connections and whom I’d regarded as a boyfriend got himself engaged to another. This spurred me into action and, by the time the happy pair got married – on my birthday incidentally – I was living in a rented flat in Chelsea and taking a degree course at the university as a very mature student. I enjoyed the course, I enjoyed living in London and I had a series of minor affairs with my fellow mature students.

The degree led to an advisory post with an education authority and, 18 months later I was invited to run a teacher training course in the West Indies. Naturally, I accepted. Just before I flew off, I met Last Chance in the village. I was pleased to see that he looked dreadful and was escorted by a woman even plainer than I. We were civil to each other but I took the greatest pleasure in outlining my travel plans for the next week – Heathrow, then to Antigua and then on to St Kitts and I’d be in the West Indies for two years.

The West Indies were wonderful. The work was challenging and the social life lively. It didn’t matter what I looked like. The kids didn’t mind. I was strange anyway. I was white. The teachers got upset when the smaller children examined my hair, my hands and the soles of my feet and felt my skin but I was insistent that the black kids had to realise that, although I looked different, it was another human being there.

I was then seconded to Grand Turk, a remote group of islands just north of Haiti and site of touch down for one of the very early NASA manned space shots. I arrived on a US military aircraft – another story entirely – and was met at the airstrip by the English overseas civil servant who had recruited me. An unlikely meeting but Nemesis struck. I liked what I saw. He was laid back, intelligent, good to look at and younger than I. He was, in fact, eight years my junior. He took me out to dinner and that really was that. We moved easily into friendship, then became lovers and, 18 months later, sealed the relationship by getting married. To the astonishment of ourselves and our friends and families.

The marriage ended only with his death, from cancer, in 1994. During the 20 years we were together, Malta became a great part of our life. We had a Richard England studio apartment at Bahar-ic-Caghaq – which was later, exchanged for an old house in Birgu – and we visited as often as we could, a habit I’ve been happy to continue since.

The last ten years have not been easy but I count my blessings as I’m in reasonable health and have enough friends, and money, to enjoy life. And sometimes revenge is sweet and the spirits rise. Recently, my sister met the dastardly farmer who had dumped me. She had not seen him for over 30 years and neither had I. She reported that ‘this little old man’ appeared, totally bald and with no teeth. He eventually asked after me. ‘She’s fine,’ said my sister. ‘Send her an e-mail.’ But he didn’t have a PC. I’d had a lucky escape. Sometimes being plain has its advantages but next time round I shall be a stunningly beautiful, thick, little bimbo.