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The day came to leave and we, my mother and I, caught the train which would ultimately take us to Capetown, a train where one booked a compartment in which one read, ate, slept and washed for tedious days on end. The hand-basin was hinged on the door and one tipped it up to empty it out, through the structure of the door onto the track. I have only a vague impression of that part of the journey, of dust, heat, the regular stops and the confinement, but I remember vividly some of the passes we went up to reach the plateaux, where the views were breath-taking and where the train, being so long and the hair-pin bends so tight, the engine actually passed beside the guard’s van

The journey home appears like a series of excerpts from an 8mm colour film rather than one long episode – like a series of snapshots. I say ‘home’ because I never really felt that Africa was my home, it was a way-station. I can almost smell the air as I did then. When the train from Livingstone to the Cape halted for water or fuel, we would find groups of Africans who wanted to sell fruit, food, and their beautiful knick-knacks, standing below us on the track, in the scorching sunlight backed by the harsh browns of the sand and the burnt grasses Their wares ranged from little models of animals the size of the blunt end of a pencil to huge elephants and crocodiles, all made from ivory. There were wooden artefacts and small carved stools with areas coloured in patches by poker-work, trays in natural and black cane, beaded bangles and little purses on a string either beaded or woven where the bottom was attached to the string and the top slid up and down it as it was opened and closed. At one such stop I persuaded my mother to buy me a long bladed wooden knife with a carved handle in a polished wood not unlike mahogany – ebony. It was one of my early ventures into persuasive barter as compensation; she was placating an aggrieved son.
For almost all the time I had lived in Africa I was required to wear an awful pith-helmet that my mother had purchased in the UK before we went out there. It was the usual putty colour and was about half an inch thick, as if made of pizza dough, although we had never heard of pizzas then. I suppose this type of hat was all the rage when she had left Africa some years before, but she was not up with the times. When we arrived I found that my peers were kitted out with very smart and very lightweight helmets made of compressed cork. All the other children made fun of mine. At that age, 6, I hadn’t the wit to sit on the thing, bust it and then get a new one and be like my contemporaries, instead I tended to run about without it, risking severe sunstroke which I suffered on more than one occasion. In the end, of course, it wore out, part of the brim went limp and when it was too far gone and was replaced by the cork type, but this only happened a few weeks before we left to come home. I was like a cat that had eaten the canary, at last I was like everyone else, now I conformed, I had a cork topee.
The day came to leave and we caught the train. By this time I was eight years old. On the train was a family friend who was on his way to Bulawayo and he accompanied us for some time; that was the problem. He was a sort of ‘hail fellow – well met’ person, given to the broad gesture and when we had been travelling for some time he came to our compartment and committed a heinous crime. I can’t recall all the details, even how it came about, but I do remember the nub of the incident vividly. You must understand that ever since I had been told I was going ‘home’ I had been casting myself as the returning traveller, having visions of myself telling all my erstwhile friends about lions and crocs, baboons and witch doctors, while standing about in my smart, new, compressed cork toupee – David Livingstone the second. This blighter, this interloper into our compartment, this vandal, stood up, opened the window and then, with words like “Well, you’ll soon be home, no need for this thing then!” he snatched the helmet off my head. I had been wearing it ever since I had received it and probably would have done so in bed if the brim had not been so hard. He then skimmed it through the window, beyond reach, beyond recovery. I was dumbfounded as I watched it disappear down the track. Heartbroken I steadily became more and more hideously vindictive after that. If even a couple of my prayers had been answered he would have died a gruesome death at my feet – hence the blackmail and the purchase of the knife

In the then Northern Rhodesia. On film today it is certainly majestic, but to see the immensity, the rush of water, hear the noise and feel the constant rain of the spray in those simple, uncluttered days, is an unforgettable lifetime’s experience. The descriptions of The Victoria Falls runs to 11 pages on the Internet; so I will be brief and describe what it was like 76 years ago. There were few visitors then, merely the locals. Both sides of the Zambezi were Northern Rhodesia, now, when crossing the bridge, built in 1908, one leaves Zambia for Zimbabwe, and the Falls Hotel is in Zimbabwe. I have already described the mode of transport to these picnics, the reason why we took the house boys along with us, and he ravages of the baboons. Only as a special treat did we eat there, mostly we picnicked in an area where the ‘rain’ – spray thrown up by the force of the fall – was absent. Also in Zimbabwe is the Rain Forest, a treed area growing on the edge of the Falls and mostly, soaking wet from the spray The Boiling Pot was where the water from the river fell via the Cateract into the Gorge and with the turbulence and the spray was all the world like a bubbling pot. >From the pages of the Internet the area now seems to be highly populated.

Signatures And Antiques Currently there is a plethora of programmes on television spawned by The Antiques Road Show, pandering to our greed and our interest in the past. That short period of the trip to Africa put me in touch with articles and signatures, which in theory would be worth a fortune today. The aspect which I find amusing is that at the same time David Attenborough is telling us that saving up things for the future is a waste of time because there ain’t no future. A signature I missed out on was that of Jim Mollison. We had the privilege of being in Livingstone when Jim Mollison and his maintenance crew stopped over, on their record breaking run from London to Australia. Needless to say Mollison was entertained at Government House, but the crew stayed with us, with the delightful result I was taken out to the plane next day and even allowed to be seated in the cockpit for one glorious minute. Strangely I remember vividly the fuss, the gathering, small though it was, and the plane, but I think I only remember the cockpit from films I have seen since rather than a true recollection, I have no strong visual image of it, unlike I have of the scene itself.
It sometimes amazes me how we make statements without question, and take information for granted without looking deeper into the bowels, so to speak. I wrote the above years ago and yet it is only recently that I have realised there must have been a number of advance maintenance crews for Mollison to have his plane serviced, as air travel was in its infancy. I have found the information inconclusive as he did fly from London to Australia and set a record but I left Africa in 1930. I am forced, therefore, to believe his visit was exploratory and not the record attempt, but I could be wrong, and frankly it no longer matters.
Elsewhere I have written about the journey home when we were besieged at every stop by Africans selling the most exquisite articles made of all the natural materials including elephant tusks, some of which I still have today, and must be worth quite a lot of money. On another occasion I discovered a trunk left by an army officer which contained a tremendous variety of buttons, shoulder badges, regimental names in brass, cap badges and other insignia in mint condition and by the handful – imagine the specialists salivating over that lot. And then of course I received a cricket ball on board ship from Jardine and didn’t have the wit to have it endorsed. But then it is only recently we have discovered how valuable silly little bits of paper have become.

I repeatedly find that the departments of the government, and local authorities issue edicts that conflict with another, or with every day practices. We were goaded at one time to switch off the idle lights on TVs and other equipment in order to save the world. What I find absurd, is that there seems to be no attempt to improve the rate of increase in public transport, and some of the routes taken by buses are equally impossible to justify. I can go from a local supermarket to my home by bus, but I can’t take the bus from my home to the supermarket, which is only a mile and a half away, without having to take two buses. You only have to have a minor construction job on a trunk road to see how many cars are actually using that road, and the majority of the cars will be one person per car. I would have thought that if they were so worried about the carbon emissions, increasing public transport would have been on the high priority list. I am aware that the cost of wars we are currently fighting are to some extent responsible, but it was the government of the time that placed us in this situation, impetuously, without thought for the outcome once the major project had been achieved, as had been recommended by senior ranks in the army.

There is generally an amicable solution to most problems, and I believe this applies particularly to what is termed ‘ the mummy ran’. I am told, that in Canada, schoolchildren are transported to school in what is termed ‘ the slow yellow bus’. In parts of Britain parents on a rota basis, collect the children en-route, all cycling, with one parent in the lead, one in the middle, and one bringing up the rear. Clearly, the numbers of people cycling in any one single group would have to have a limit. I recently received a postal catalogue that informed me that a government survey, carried out by a University had discovered that shopping by telephone, or online, generates 24 times less in carbon emissions compared with shopping by car. I quote this, not because I see it laudable, but because it shows the government is aware that using cars for shopping is creating carbon emission. The rider to that is that carrying children to school on a daily basis must be 250 times the carbon emission they won’t generate if they cycled, and something fairly low if they used the bus.

The research I did was very simple, and unscientific, and one of the questions I was asking parents was why children over say nine years old, had to be accompanied. There seemed to be two main worries, one was bullying by children from another quarter, and one was the possibility of children being offered drugs free of charge, experimentally. I don’t know if there are any statistics to justify these fears, but to take the number of children individually to school by car, as seems to be the practice everywhere, seems to be using a hammer to crack a nut. I accept the fact that the children are required to understand these problems and take precautions, one of which is a series of collection points, where parents can take their children, and either rely on the children as a group to resist these problems, or again have a rota of parents willing to walk with the children. To someone who walked every day to elementary school, a distance of a mile and a half, morning and afternoon, with no molestation in any form, makes me feel that the problem is not as serious as it would seem, and if it is then steps should be taken by the government and local authorities to eradicate this.

I may be telling you something that you are well aware of, but I think it well worth voicing it again for the benefit of those who have been too busy to take time to contemplate. I for ever seem to be amazed at the way in which the world and we within it, have come about; that from a ball of highly heated gas, we could arrive at where we are today. The way in which nature has accommodated and used the differing aspects of terrain and weather, to provide habitats and nourishment for all the species that have arrived in the various areas, over decades and millennia, is nothing short of a miracle The Hummingbird, with its long curved beak, arrived at by the mutation of the genes, and the basis of the survival of the fittest, is just one feature of millions of cases. The arrival of creatures with heavily armoured exteriors, for no apparent reason that I have heard of, in itself is remarkable. And so, with a combination of the survival of the fittest, mutation of the genes, plus the continuous changes in weather, and habit, the world has been the home of a vast number of different species, many long extinct, and worse still, many in the process of becoming extinct.

I think it is reasonable to assume that when man first appeared as a reasoning animal, he would have had little effect on his environment, and like the rest, he would have to hunt to live. But the problem has been that man is a reasoning being, understanding cause-and-effect, able to make tools and use them for his own benefit. The result of this was that he had an advantage over all the other creatures to such an extent, that in certain cases he was responsible for making some of them extinct, and that process which might have been by necessity initially, is now one based upon greed, avarice and so-called leisure. Greed and avarice was stretched to the extent that sophisticated man used other races as a commodity, without forethought of the long-term disadvantages. This general aspect of man has appeared in every walk of life, such as the mindless waste of oil reserves in United States, purely in the enhancement of the wealth of individuals. I don’t need to progress along these lines, we are all aware of the way in which big business often operates to the detriment or the majority. Wars, generally started by a few ,with high ambition, lays waste disproportionately to any possible valuable outcome. The use of Napalm is a glaring example.

Having lived nearly 90 years, passing through periods of calm, pleasurable enjoyment, to absolutely crazy mayhem, which were no more use than mindless destruction and set us back 30 years, I find that man is still wrecking not only our environment, but the atmosphere above us, through short-term, untried, policies, rather than careful thought along the lines of cause and effect.

I had always thought that fairytales were for the entertainment of the young. My definition of a fairytale is that it is an imaginative story not based on fact, generally gentle in concept, amusing, and with an element of danger as the spice. Now I find that we are being presented with a double diet of fairytales on a daily basis on television. One form is the adventure-crime film that is totally unbelievable from the very outset, because none of the action could be duplicated without special effects, and illustration techniques. I don’t need to tell you all the details, about guns with endless ammunition, and every single member of cast proficient in martial arts. I don’t know anybody who knows anything about Martial arts. This sort of mockup, might be all right for children, but putting it on a programme entitled ‘ movies4men’ leaves one to wonder who these men really are. They must be watching these films because they are offered to such a great extent, they are obviously unbelievable, so perhaps these men need some sort of fairytale.

The other side of fairytales are as a result of the credit crunch. Advertisers are competing with one another to provide advertisements which are increasingly cheaper to make, while giving the information required by the product manufacturer. If you look closely you realise that most of the adverts are as a result of illustration techniques, rather than photographed material as in the old days. They now have every type of puppet making grandiose recommendations for the product, in instances which have no logic whatsoever, and in some cases using fear as a goad. I was always led to believe, and I have found this to be true in my own case, that exposure to germs is an essential part of living, so as to build up the immune system. Hence it seems irrational, that in the home, where there is unlikely to be the level of germs that are not already catered for in the immune systems of the family, yet the viewer is being urged to wipe everything in sight with the product to avoid these millions of germs, sources unspecified, types unspecified. I’ve found it ludicrous that the amount of cleaning shown and urged to be necessary around the WC, is in areas that would only be treated in normal circumstances by a loo brush. I know I’m a critical old idiot, but I object to being treated as if I had no brain with which to think for myself. Those ugly little puppets seem to be inveterate liars.

With no homework, I had a long afternoon to put in. Ocassionally a few friends and I would go outside the limits placed by our parents, through the tall grasses of the Veldt, along wide deep drainage ditches waiting in their dusty state for the next onslaught of the monsoon rains. It was exciting creeping down these excavations, knowing full well there were snakes there, because our parents had told us that was the reason we were not to trespass outside the town boundary. Across this arid pasture we went until we neared the abattoir, another no-go area. It was here we spied on the Africans slaughtering the pigs. The act certainly didn’t conform to Government regulations; it was more a tribal game. They would release a pig. give it a stab to urge it on its way, then some of the men would run with it until they managed to kill it with a knife. We seem to have been unaffected by this brutal barbarism. I was horrified for the sake of the pigs. While I was left with a mental snapshot, it did not affect me otherwise, no nightmares and no aversion to blood, This was not the only killing I was to observe. In retrospect I realise that the Africans’ values were unsurprisingly different from those of the whites. On one occasion, shortly after I arrived, one of the servants asked me if I would like to see the chicken being killed, the one destined for the table that day. The family reared chickens for eggs and meat in the compound at the back of the house. I assume I acquiesced because I became party to a demonstration of decapitation and the sight of a headless chicken running round the compound until it fell, already dead. This I still see in graphic 3D.
Until I started thinking more deeply concerning those days, I had not realised how much death was taken for granted in that environment. On one occasion I saw from a distance the witch doctor who was brought in for the ritual killing of several people and would ultimately be hanged, himself. I saw a snake killed on the step of the bungalow merely because it was poisonous. I went to the Zambezi to see my father bring in the bodies of several crocodiles, which had been killed because they were thought to be lying in wait for Africans watering their cattle. Both oxen and herders had become the reptile’s prey, swept off their feet by a swipe of a tail and then drowned. These huge creatures lived on an island in the river and took their kills there to bury them for eating later. The white men were rowed out on the river in small boats to shoot the crocs in the water and then, when they were sure the reptiles were dead they would be tied on to the boat and towed ashore. My father and his friends would then stand around while their servants skinned the beasts. I remembered that the smell of raw crocodile was one of the foulest smells I had ever encountered.
All this took place at what was referred to as ‘the bathing place’. An area of cleared River Zambezi riverbank with two rectangular huts in the style of native dwellings, used as changing rooms for the whites – by the men and ladies. In Africa, at that time, white women were all ladies, irrespective of their antecedents or proclivities. As far as I could see, the whole aspect of life as a member of the Raj was like being a member of a select, upper class British club. There were rules, which one only broke on penalty of being black-balled, so one conformed – how one conformed. The actual bathing was done in the Zambezi itself. I assume that an inlet in the bank reduced the velocity of the river to nearly nothing at that point. I have no recollection of currents being a problem. The main river was only about two miles from the Victoria Falls at that point so the velocity in the main stream must have been quite high.
To protect the bathers from the ever present threat of crocodiles, wire netting on poles formed the perimeter of the pool, held to the bottom by stones, a crude system which later proved fatal for a friend of mine. At Madeira, on our way home we read of the death by drowning of a school friend who had been lost in the swimming pool. Apparently he had not been seen for a while and when the men went to look for him fearing him drowned, his body was not within the enclosure, but they did find the wire netting had been breached very badly. The assumption was that a crocodile had entered, drowned the boy and left with him. From an age when I could reason cause and effect, I had been astounded that the whites would have permitted the Africans to water their oxen and cattle beside the bathing place, it was tantamount to training the crocodiles, and the death of the school boy had not been a unique case. We later heard that that was the end of bathing in the Zambezi. Incidentally, no one ever called crocodiles anything but crocs.

They tell me that once a racist, always a racist, and they may be right. Brought up in the British Raj it is hard to eschew old habits so when I say ‘boys’, I mean men, big black ones at that, in this context anyway – although I have since been taught the error of my ways – I think.
In Africa we had a car, it was an American beast of great dimensions and incredible strength, called an Overlander. It had mica detachable side windows, which formed part of a soft, collapsible hood which rested behind the back seat. The wheels were huge, the mudguards were big and wide, and made an ideal seat for our African servants. Most weeks we went on picnics and this meant taking guards with us to guard the car and more importantly the food, not from marauding people, but baboons which gathered in enormous numbers around all the picnic sites. The servants also functioned in their named capacity and laid out the table cloth, on a low table or adjacent rock, brought chairs, and then set out the food. It is no wonder our neighbours who for all the years spent in Africa, had been dreaming of retiring to Eastbourne. When they achieved their wish after 1945, they only stuck it for two years and then returned to Africa. I suspect their muscles had forgotten what housework really meant
Usually we would take two of the ‘House Boys’, one on each rear mudguard, hanging on to the canopy as we went over dry earth roads which could be rutted after the rains by the wheels of ox carts. In the wet season we might take two more, perched on the front mudguards in case we got bogged down. Our two main venues were the Zambezi and the Victoria Falls, two of the most incredibly breathtaking sights I have ever seen. The River for its sheer width and impressiveness and the Falls because it was so vast, so varied and above all, for its majesty. Seen on film it is certainly majestic, but to see the immensity, the rush of water, hear the noise and feel the constant rain of the spray is an unforgettable lifetime’s experience.
Learning to Swim In The Zambezi The actual bathing was done in the Zambezi itself, an inlet in the bank reduced the velocity of the river to nearly nothing at that point. I have no recollection of currents being a problem. The main river was only about two miles from the Victoria Falls at that point so the velocity in the main stream must have been quite high. To protect the bathers from the ever present threat of crocodiles, wire netting on poles formed the perimeter of the pool, held to the bottom by stones, a crude system which later proved fatal for a friend of mine. There was a diving board of sorts and that was the total sum of the amenities available, but everyone was grateful for them, especially in the dry season.
My father held a bronze medal for life saving which he had gained in the UK before leaving for Africa and he was keen that I should become a strong swimmer. Typically, he therefore initiated a novel regime of teaching. I was expected to jump in to the river off the diving board – a drop of at least six feet – and flounder until, at the last minute my father would rescue me and trail me to shallow water. At that time there was a coin, a silver three-penny piece, called a ticci. Each entry from the diving board was rewarded by a ticci at the end of the session. I, like any other boy of that age, with pocket money scarce and a voracious appetite for spending, thought money had little relevance other than gratification. I was therefore almost prepared to drown if need be to gain another ticci, and at times I thought I might as my father seemed so dilatory in saving me. I was terribly innocent of course, instead of appearing to be a slow learner and extending the life of his tips, sheer self-preservation made me learn the dog-paddle within days, by which time the bonanza was over, there was no more need for further bribery.

Rugby Was Certainly A Culture Shock Prior to leaving England for Africa, the only male member of our family whom I had any regular contact with was my grandfather and he was rarely in the house when I was awake. Hence I had never heard of Rugby, as in those days it was mostly a Public School activity. The horizon of women rarely rose above ladylike pursuits, add to this the fact that playing in the street was anathema to our family, for these reasons I was only vaguely aware of the games real people played. My first real run in with life in the raw came about almost as soon as we had arrived in Livingstone, it was a rugby match. Most of the civil servants were hand-picked which meant Oxbridge, if not that, then Public School, so the prevalent games were rugby, golf and tennis in that order. Hence, as a matter of course, we attended a rugby match at the first opportunity. I hadn’t a clue what was going on, I recognised the ground was hard because I was standing on it and if I had had any doubts to the fact, when two or three of the players, including the dentist, were carried off with broken bones or concussion, I had ample proof. It was an impressive introduction to Africa.

The Case Of The Surgical Saw.
I loved the sensation of the sand under my bare feet and when out of parental gaze I would kick off my shoes and run about barefoot. Totally daft behaviour, there were all sorts of grubs and creatures just waiting for lunch, and, of course, I paid the penalty, I contracted a sore on the instep of my left foot which would not heal. Years later Willie, my mother, told me it was Beri Beri, but I think she must have been mistaken. We had no private medicine, there were doctors provided by our avuncular Colonial Service and they operated from the hospital. If you were sick you went there unless you were too sick, and then they came to you. I had earlier contracted a severe and persistent case of malaria, so I was well versed in the habits of our local medical profession.
The sore made itself a nuisance at about the time my brother was born, so Willie had her hands full and as I knew most of the medicals socially as well as professionally, she sent me up to the hospital on my own for treatment. As I remember it, there was little to choose between the architectural design of the hospital and our bungalow, just a few extra stabs with the bungalow rubber stamp and hey presto, a drawing for a hospital. Someone or other must have told me to wait because I was seated on the veranda at the back of the hospital kicking my heels and looking round me. People passed and spoke and so time moved on until a doctor stopped, looked at me and said something like ‘I won’t be long’, and disappeared, only to reappear with a bone-saw in his hand. It was similar to the things butchers use, a coarse version of a hacksaw. ‘Won’t be long, Jack,’ he said brandishing the saw and smiling from ear to ear like a pantomime demon, ”When I’ve finished with this chap you’re next,” and he gave another flourish with the saw and disappeared.
Aged seven plus, I was no coward, but I let out a screech and my feet barely touched the ground as I ran crying all the way home. Some joke! The fact that I remember it is not surprising, it is still vivid. What I really wonder is whether it really had any long term affect on me. I probably had nightmares for a day or two, but at that age, I believe there was too much going on for it to be taken seriously and I’m sure my parents were not too bothered. Jung, Adler, Freud and litigation were not on everyone’s lips and in those days, it was probably all treated as a silly prank. Pity! Today I’m sure I’d have been scarred for life and only compensation in six figures could possibly assuage the hurt.

Livingstone From the age of six until I was eight years old, I lived in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia, as part of the British Raj, although then it was not thought of in that way, even if we behaved so. As a little boy, lifted out of a simple, stable environment, dumped into a totally rarefied existence, I was to find nearly everything alien and therefore a searing experience. For example, the ground was of loose, red sand, with sparse clumps of brown grass and insects and small creatures squirming away as I walked. To a child who went to the seaside only once or twice a year, the opportunity to run barefoot and enjoy the sensuous experience of loose, warm, or hot sand beneath my feet and between my toes, was a transition which was only renewed in my thirties and forties on the hotter beaches of southern Europe. Our house was on the edge of the Veldt, only a few hundred yards from land as it had been since the dawn of time. Certainly not like South London, you did not hear the roar of lions at night in Wandsworth. Cautionary warnings about the dangers of wandering outside the permanent encampment, our town of Livingstone, only fed my imagination and the sounds at night confirmed my wildest dreams, but then I was a dreamer who longed for impossible adventures. If I had any suspicions that the warnings might merely be some form of parental ruse to keep me within hailing distance, they were soon dispelled; at night I could hear the cries of animals in the distance.
In the garden at the rear of the house were huts, made of reeds from the Zambesi river, plastered with mud, and in these huts were seemingly huge black men, some single, a few with families, who were required, by a tradition imposed from outside, to be subservient, even to a little alien boy. I found that these huts and the occupants had a particular smell, one I remembered long after I had left Africa, it was neither good nor offensive, just distinctive. Years later I was to recall this with some embarrassment when I heard an African remark that whites smelled horribly to Africans.
My father was a civil servant in the Colonial Service provided with standard, rubber-stamp type furnished accommodation, filled out by personal possessions collected along the way. To a boy of that age, the traditional civil service delineation of rank by the size and quality of the dwelling and its furnishings would have meant nothing, but the hardness of the tiled floors, the zinc lined boxes and steel trunks against the ravages of the red ant, stayed with me. Livingstone at that time was the seat of Government for Northern Rhodesia, with the Residence of the Governor at ‘Government House’. It was there visiting notables, such as Jim Mollison, the flyer, were put up, where parties were held, even for the children, and where one had to be on one’s best behaviour – children and parents alike.
I still believe I can see most of Livingstone as it was then, the houses in rows, occupying such large tracts they seemed scattered, each with its small kraal for the servants, its chickens, its fruit trees and a few vegetables. The fruit trees made a great impact on me, the lemons were like Jaffa oranges, with thick skins which were as tasty as the fruit they wrapped, which in turn was so sweet no sugar was needed. There were tangerines, oranges, plantains and groundnuts – pea nuts, – and what was more, for most of the year the sun shone and shone.
Looking back, now experienced in the ways of the Services abroad, I realise that the hierarchical system, the division between families according to the relative ranks of the bread-winners, certainly pertained, because my first few months were not all sweetness and light, there was a pecking order among the children which I didn’t understand, – at six, how could I? I found myself subjected to bullying by older and bigger boys, from families senior to ours. Strangely the most recurrent image of those days is the ‘Sundowner’ The white population of Livingstone was very small. The whites, by definition, were the masters, in authority; while many of the more menial jobs were either carried out by Africans or Asians. In the evenings, there being no commercial forms of entertainment, the whites tended to meet regularly at one another’s houses for drinks prior to the evening meal – for sundowners. The tantalus was unlocked, the whiskey decanter produced and the same old chat got under way. I, on orange juice, made myself invisible and sipped slowly – when the glass was empty I was sent to bed, and I suspect the real scandal was then discussed.

My regular readers will be aware that I have been ill in the last three months and in consequence have not been writing on a regular basis, but I now intend to change that in a radical way. Over the years I have said more or less everything I intended to say that illustrated a principle which is applicable to similar circumstances. As a result of having said the same thing in many different ways, I feel that I’ve covered the ground adequately, and will only write, as I do now, when I have something cogent to say, that is worth saying. Originally, I was given the blog by my grandson to express my autobiography, and in the early years that is what I did. I am convinced by the statistics, and the fact that the years between the First World War and now, are of a high level of interest, and also because it would seem that they are being used in some cases for school projects. I have no way of knowing that this is the case, so I propose to start at the very beginning and for one week post a page of a biography on a daily basis, on the blog, and subsequently, instead, two pages every Saturday and Sunday. I do this for a specific reason, above wanting to give new readers an opportunity to see those pages, I wish to gauge the popularity of the auto biography in the current climate.

I wish to stress that what I have written in the autobiography is not so much about what I have done, but about the ambiances with time, the dramatic encapsulated in the ordinary, and the converse. I personally found through my 88 years such an incredible change in every aspect of life and living, that it is worthily of note. Circumstance has given me the opportunity to live and work in a vast variety of totally different milieu, which gave me, standing on the sidelines, this immensely graphic perspective.

Thank you for your continued support