I have not significantly changed my views of Dawkins in the intervening period, but articles and attacks such as this and the one that occurred on Radio 4 last week, where he forgot the full title of Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ does incline me to soften my opinion of him. Some of those attackers are so fatuous in their methods that it must be extremely tiresome for him.

Essentially, what the article says, is that Professor  Dawkins bears responsibility for the sins of ancestors, some of whom were slave traders and owners. The writer, one Adam Lusher, even suggests that Dawkins must possess slave-owning genes. As Dawkins points out, in his rebuttal here, even if there were such a thing, after 7 generations, he would only have 1/128^th of that slave-owning ancestor’s genes in him. Even the Bible only condemns descendants for the sins of their fathers to the 4^th generation: “a nice example, incidentally, of biblical morality”.

I continue to stand by what I said in my original post, but I do believe that these silly assaults on Dawkins are beginning to backfire, in much the same way that his overly enthusiastic attacks on religion and its adherents backfired. I think that he has realised that a calmer approach might achieve better results.

On his own site, Prof Dawkins says that it is only because the direct patrilineal line links him to his ancestor that his connection was identified. He told Mr Lusher that it is very likely that most people inBritainare descended from slave owners and indeed from slaves themselves. I know that I am – from slave-owners that is.

I won’t bore you all with too many details, but one of my ancestors, was a fellow by the name of Bryan Blundell, who founded the Blue Coat School in Liverpool. Much of his fortune came from trading slaves in the 18^th century. Another was a Scotsman by the name of James Crokatt. He went off to Charleston in South Carolina where he made a fortune in trading slaves and indigo. He returned to the UK in about 1750 and bought a huge home, becoming a pillar of society. His son was painted by Gainsborough.

For those of you who do not know, indigo is the blue dye used to colour denim jeans. Perhaps Lusher was correct in his assertion about our inheritance since I own several pairs myself.

Here is my 7th great uncle 1st on left.

One such comment referred to Lord Salisbury, who as Prime Minister at the end of the 19^th century, had bent over backwards to avoid war, not just with Germany, but with the US as well. I was reminded of a comment I had recently in a book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, by US Republican Pat Buchanan, an excerpt of which is here. Surprisingly, for a Republican American of Irish extraction, Buchanan is very sympathetic to theBritish Empire and the benefits it brought to the world. It is worth reading the excerpt, just to hear what he has to say about, and how critical he is of American icons, Thomas Jefferson (‘all men are equal’) and Woodrow Wilson, (‘the right to self-determination’). What he said about Lord Salisbury also took me by surprise. He describes Salisbury as an appeaser, though rather than being critical, he admires him for it.

“In the summer of 1895, London received a virtual ultimatum from secretary of state Richard Olney, demanding that Great Britain accept U.S. arbitration in a border dispute between British Guiana andVenezuela. Lord Salisbury shredded Olney’s note like an impatient tenured professor cutting up a freshman term paper. But President Cleveland demanded that Britain accept arbitration—or face the prospect of war with theUnited States. The British were stunned by American enthusiasm for a war over a patch of South American jungle, and incredulous. America deployed two battleships to Britain’s forty-four. Yet Salisbury took the threat seriously: “A war with America…in the not distant future has become something more than a possibility.”

“Isolation is much less dangerous than the danger of being dragged into wars which do not concern us. Lord Salisbury,1896.”

Now there are many who will describe Pat Buchanan as a ‘right wing, religious anti-Semitic bigot’ and with some justification. He ran for President when I was living in theUS, and I watched him on various TV programmes, so I have some sympathy for that view. But at the same time, he does have the courage of his convictions and is not afraid to say what he thinks, some of which definitely needs saying. Most recently, “If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S.population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?”

In any event, I went to Buchanan’s Wikipedia site where I read more about him. That took me to a spat that he had with columnist William F Buckley, an interesting chap himself and from there to H L Menken,  also worth reading about. Mencken it was satirised the famous Scopes Trial, which he called the Monkey Trial.

Seeing how the Chariot carries few, if any creationists, I am sure that you will all have heard of the Scopes Trial.

“Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act which made it unlawful to teach evolution.”

Given the nature of it, one can understand why it was open to satire. What I did not know was that the whole thing had been set up to test the law and that it was the prosecutors who were the instigators, not because they agreed with the law, but because they wanted to have it repealed. That was one reason. The other was that they hoped the publicity of such a trial would bring fortune to the little county.

“In Dayton, the Hicks brothers were regulars at the F.E. Robinson Drugstore, where the town’s professionals often gathered to socialize and discuss the issues of the day. In May 1925, the Hicks brothers and other regulars became involved in a discussion over an American Civil Liberties Union advertisement seeking a challenge to the Butler Act, a recently-enacted state law barring the teaching of the Theory of Evolution. Realizing the publicity such a case would bring to Rhea County, the group— who would eventually become known as the “drugstore conspirators”— decided to engineer a case that would test the constitutionality of the Butler Act. The group recruited local physics teacher John T. Scopes— a friend— to admit to teaching the Theory of Evolution. One of the conspirators, George Rappleyea, swore out a warrant for Scopes’ arrest on May 5, and charges were filed the following day.”

The prosecution won the day and Scopes was found guilty as had been their plan. They now hoped that the case would progress to the Supreme Court which would bring even more publicity to the town. However, the presiding judge had made a technical mistake. On the defendant being found guilty the judge had issued Scopes with a fine of $100. On appeal, the new judge declared that only a jury can issue a fine higher than $50 and since the judge had not consulted the jury. Thus Scopes escaped on a technicality. The new judge went on to state that since Scopes was no longer living in Tennessee, it was no longer in anybody’s interest to pursue the case further, much to the dismay of those seeking to have the law overturned.

So where does Sue fit in? Well, one of the ‘drugstore conspirators’ and a co-prosecutor was a man, yes, a man called Sue Hicks. He was a fine lawyer who prosecuted over 800 murder suspects.

“Hicks’ oddly feminine first name may have inspired the song, “A Boy Named Sue”, which Johnny Cash first performed in 1969. The song’s author, Shel Silverstein, attended a judicial conference in Gatlinburg,Tennessee— at which Hicks was a speaker— and apparently got the idea for the song title after hearing Hicks introduced. While Cash said he was unaware that Silverstein had any one person in mind when he wrote the song, he did send Hicks two records and two autographed pictures signed, “To Sue, how do you do?””

The song does contain the line, ‘Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July’ so there does seem to be truth behind the theory. I have been to Gatlinberg. It is the most tacky town on earth, though set in a very pretty part of the Appalachian Mountains, a stone’s throw from Dollywood!

Hicks was named by his father in honour of his mother who died in childbirth. He maintained that it was not given to him make him tough as is the reason given in the song.

Let me provide some examples.

The case of a South African teacher in New York came to my attention over the weekend. Barry Sirmon, who had fled South Africa during the apartheid years, taught for 11 years at the very liberal, Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Manhattan. Renowned for his jokes the purpose of which was to make fun of stereotypes and thereby destroy them, he was popular with most students and teachers. In October, a couple of black kids joined the class. Sirmon made the obviously ironic remark that he might have trouble telling them apart. It was ironic because though both ‘black’, they were of very different shades. The comment was reported and Sirmon was asked to resign. He refused saying he done nothing wrong and was subsequently fired.

The two big stories in England are very different, but the both rankle.

The sheer stupidity of the John Terry case defies belief. I don’t really care whether Terry used the word black when he called Anton Ferdinand a ‘something c**t’. That Ferdinand or anybody else should take offence at the adjective rather than the noun is mind boggling. It is bad enough that he should take offence at all. Insults are bandied around the sports field all the time. Footballers make mistakes. They know the laws of the game and that for example a handball or other foul inside the box leads to a penalty. Yet these offences are committed, as are fouls elsewhere on the field. In most cases they do not deliberately set to commit the offence, rather they occur in the heat of the moment. Football authorities know this and thus unless it is deemed deliberate or cynical, no further action is taken. Even when a yellow or red card is shown, the police do not get involved. Watching a press conference last night I was horrified by the way Terry was banned from making any comment on the subject. I cannot help feeling that if I was him, I would have let rip and bugger the consequences.

The more serious case is that of Stephen Lawrence which has reared its ugly head again. I recognise that the police very likely did screw up the investigation, deliberately or otherwise and that those suspects were probably guilty, but the endless attention given to one racist murder, white on black, as against the long list of black on white murders, really angers me. The investigation into police practices at the time, found them to be ‘institutionally racist’. Fine, they must clean up their act and move on. But the efforts to find those suspects, who have already been found not guilty continues with an intensity and publicity not shown to other cases. If this coverage is supposed to make me more sympathetic to Lawrence, or his parents or British blacks in general, it is not. It is having the reverse effect. I don’t suppose that matters too much as I do not live there, but I suspect that it is having the same effect on other white people too and is therefore backfiring. That pisses me off too.

Then there was the ridiculous case of Tiger Woods’s former caddy, who referred to his former employer’s black arse. The outrage that this comment caused around the world just goes to show how pathetic society as become.

In this country we have the ANC Youth Leader, Julius Malema. Most of you will have heard of him. He is currently suspended following an internal investigation by the ANC in which he was found to have brought the party into disrepute following his advocating regime change in Botswana. In case you do not know, the president of that country is of mixed race. His father was Sir Sretese Khama, the country’s first president, while his mother was an English woman, Ruth Williams. Ian Khama is one of the few SADC leaders to openly criticise bad leadership inAfrica, especially that of Robert Mugabe. By default, therefore, he is not a friend of Julius Malema.

However, further to those charges were charges of racism. Malema has, at a public forum, accused all whites of being criminals. He has called Helen Zille, leader of the opposition, a cockroach and implied that she slept with all the male members of her shadow cabinet. He continues to sing the song, ‘Kill the Boer’. He swore at and racially abused a white BBC journalist. There is no question that he said those things, but strangely he was found not guilty of being a racist. Yet, everyday we read of whites who have to resign from their jobs for using mild expletives. A popular sports presenter was fired recently because he referred, in private, to a black colleague who refused to repay a large debt, as a ‘kaffir’.  Our friend Julius Malema, recently referred to Indians as ‘makula’ which is the Khosa word for ‘coolies’. I have very little doubt that he will wriggle out of this one.

Some years ago, the world was outraged by the case of 3 white Texans who dragged to death, behind their vehicle, an elderly black vagrant. It was a truly horrible murder and those men deserved their punishment. One has already been executed, one is on death row and third is in for life. It was not just Texas or the US that was horrified by this event, it was the whole world. Murder of this nature is shocking.

So can somebody please tell me why nobody gives a rat’s arse to the racial murders that amounts to genocide, that is taking place in South Africa. Please look at this article and tell me what you think about it and what needs to be done.

Genocide

In broad terms, the purpose of language, I hope we can all agree, is for the communication of ideas, feelings and information. Leaving aside signing (and possibly other forms), language falls into two main categories, spoken and written. Within this context, we have several tools at our disposal that enable us to communicate more effectively.  

Both forms make use of words. The greater the vocabulary, the more explicit, subtle and impactful are the ideas that can be expressed. Other tools that apply to either or both forms of communication, include, punctuation, spelling, grammar, figures of speech – alliteration, similes, metaphors, irony etc.  styles, font, capitalisation, accent, pronunciation, tone, volume and so forth. To this list one can add slang, swearing, text-speech, emoticons and no doubt other less formal methods of expressing oneself.

While each of these tools is valid when used appropriately, their efficacy declines when overused or misused.

A poorly punctuated sentence can convey the opposite message to that intended. An officer to his troops:

‘Gentlemen, the French. Fire first!’

‘Gentlemen, the French fire first.’

Likewise with spelling:

Did the best man say of the bride:

“What a waste!” or

“What a waist!”

Irony and sarcasm have their effect when used sparingly. Used excessively, however, and things can backfire. A man who says to his wife who has kept him waiting for half an hour while she gets changed, ‘Right on time as usual. You look very pretty.’ The second statement may easily, though unintentionally, be taken in the same context as the first, obviously sarcastic, which could lead to a frosty drive to the party.

Slang, when used in an appropriate audience can be very effective. If I were to say, to a visiting team of Zimbabwean or South African rugby players, ‘come braai later. We have hobos of boerrie and vleis. It will be a lekker jol’, they would feel welcomed. On the other hand saying it to a parliamentary delegation from theCanada, for example, would probably lead to some blank stares.

Text speech can also be misconstrued. To many ‘lol’ means ‘laugh out loud’. To others it means ‘lots of love’. Some know that ‘book’ means ‘cool’. To others it just means ‘book’.

The other day it was suggested that one of the posters might be more effective at communicating his real thoughts, which have apparently been misconstrued on occasion, if he were to make use of ‘smiley things’ when he was attempting to be humorous. Of course, emoticons are a perfectly valid way of conveying the mood that is intended to accompany the text that has been written. But they too are open to misinterpretation, misuse and down right abuse. Calling somebody a ‘daft twit’ accompanied by J is probably ok if the ‘twit’ has done or said something obviously silly. But, if the poster has just torn to shreds the argument of another blogger and called him ‘an ignorant slime ball’, adding a J is not going to coupé le moutard.

So now we get on to swearing. It is my belief that, by definition, swearing is offensive. It is intended to express disdain, contempt, disgust and any other negative sentiment. The question is that given the diversity of various English speaking nations, the use and meaning of words evolves from one country to the next, so when does a word cease to be a swear word and become acceptable in polite society? Julia Gillard, addressing the Australian Assembly may ( I stress, may) very well feel comfortable using the word ‘bugger’ in reference to a colleague or a member of the opposition. I doubt very much that the Queen or even David Cameron would use it when addressing Parliament. Cameron might say ‘damn’, but I doubt the Queen would.

(Incidentally, did you know that Anne Boleyn was convicted of having breached the Buggery Statute, introduced by Henry VIII in 1534, for having induced her brother to have sexual relations with her brother? Buggery covered a multitude of sins including sodomy, bestiality and incest. (According to Catherine Arnold in her book, City ofSin.))

Swearing is commonly used as an expletive. A frustrated boss may berate his wayward subordinate such: ‘You are no bloody use to man or beast’.

Here, the word ‘bloody’ adds nothing to the actual meaning of the sentence but may convey a degree of personal contempt on the part of the speaker. That level to which the impression is interpreted by the junior may depend on how often his boss curses. If he says ‘bloody’ or uses some other coarse epithet every second word, the impact in the above example may be lost. On the other hand, if it is a rare occurrence for his boss to swear, the ‘swearee’ may take its use, in this instance, very seriously.

Swearing can also be used as an interjection as in ‘Bloody hell!’ to express surprise. The degree of surprise on the part of the speaker can better be interpreted by the listener depending on the frequency with which speaker is known to curse. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to use that phrase, I would imagine he was genuinely taken aback and that a jackdaw was sitting in his chair. (Sorry, the jackdaw sat in the Cardinal’s chair not the Archbishop’s.). If Kevin Wilson were to say it, it would probably mean that his beer was nearly finished.

The point being that swearing has currency only if it is used sparingly. Excessive use reduces its value and shows the speaker to be on par with those illiterate teenagers who intersperse every word with ‘like’. As in, ‘shall we like go to the mall? Or, ‘I like like you!’

This is all just a pompous way of saying that I am with Soutie. I believe in rules rather than laws. So, if we would not want our children, or grandmother, the Queen or our confessor, to read what we write, then perhaps it would be a good rule to think about what we say and how we say it and thereby avoid offending anybody. But, I hasten to add, nobody should be shot for breaching that rule, least of all me.

E and OE

During my ongoing and rather listless research of my family tree, I sometimes come across some interesting little vignettes. One of them concerns the story of an artifact that once belonged to ancestors of mine.  The “Luck of Edenhall” is a glass beaker that is thought to have been made in Syria in the 13th century, elegantly decorated in blue, green, red and white enamel with gilding.

“If this cup should break or fall
Farewell the Luck of Edenhall!”

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck_of_Edenhall. The vessel was donated to the V&A Museum in the 1920s. As I was going to be in London, I thought it might be interesting to go and have a look.

Having tracked down and gazed upon the rather beautiful, heirless heirloom, described as being one of the most important exhibits in the V&A, I went on a wander around the museum. Eventually, I stumbled across a gallery that displayed some of the collections of Horace Walpole from his home at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham. His name had come up in conversation, a few days ago, in relation to a quiz or crossword or some such. I think the reference was to his Gothic novel, Castle of Otranto. (Walpole is thought to have coined the word, ‘serendipity’.) Anyway, I confess that I did not know much about Horace Walpole, so when I got home I googled him. Inevitably, perhaps, that took me to his father Robert Walpole.

Earlier in my visit, I had been staying with my sister and had discovered in  my room a copy of John Gay’s ‘The Beggar’s Opera’. Of course I had heard of Gay and his satirical work and I even knew that he invented the character Macheath, about whom Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill wrote the song,  ”Die Moritat von Mackie Messer”. What I did not know was that the highwayman Macheath was based upon Robert Walpole. Had he been alive today, John Gay would surely have been writing for Private Eye.

Anyway, here is Bobby Darrin singing about Britain’s first and longest serving Prime Minister.

Because of its strategic importance over the centuries, the island was a major trading post for ships rounding the Cape on trips too and from the Far East. As a result there were numerous wrecks in the waters surrounding it. When the tide goes out the locals go and sift through the sand searching for beads. These were used by the Portuguese to trade for gold and slaves with the likes of Monomutapa of Great Zimbabwe fame. They natives make colourful necklaces from them which they then tout to the few tourists that appear. It is claimed that because of their origins, i.e. 16^th century Venetian glass etc and their historical significance, these beads are very valuable. This is possibly true. However, I have been conditioned over many years of colonial upbringing to laugh at the naïve and gullible savage who has traded his country away for a few beads. Manhattan Island springs to mind. I am damned if I will give the now savvy savage the opportunity to con me in return.

The island is also littered with what appears to be and what I am assured are bits of blue China pottery, invariably deemed to be of the Ming dynasty by enthusiastic tourists and touts alike. We met a diver there who with his team had uncovered a wreck with loads of the stuff. They had reached an agreement whereby anything of unique significance would go to the government, but the run of the mill bits and pieces they could dispose of for profit. Unfortunately for them, most of the collection was of such historical importance that the government got to keep it and they barely covered their costs.

Wandering around the island you do come across a few other white people; either tourists or UN aid workers. There is an infallible way of determining which is which. You smile and say hello. If they acknowledge, they are tourists. If they ignore you then they are aid workers; or perhaps missionaries.

It is somewhat depressing to learn just how out of touch with reality these aid workers are with life in Africa. Just by the mainland end of the causeway is a group of high rise buildings, apartments built for relocated inhabitants of the island. Here is a society (I use the word in its broadest sense) that lives entirely by what the sea provides. They live in rude huts that are regularly destroyed by cyclones. They build the crudest of boats with the most basic of rigging and the most rudimentary of paddles, none of which receive more than the bare minimum of maintenance. Apart from when they are hungry or need to answer nature’s apparently ever-so-frequent call they sit around doing nothing all day. It is a perfect example of subsistence living. While one might argue that this is how it should be, a bunch of woolly-minded, liberal third-world groupies who think that they can advance the welfare of these people by imprisoning them in modern high-rise flats where they have to conform to the social mores of petty bourgeois western culture, are bound to be sadly disillusioned.

Speaking of things rudimentary, the facilities of the villa are, to-date, pretty basic, although restoration work is ongoing. There is little in the way of furniture and the floors are rough concrete. That in itself is not a problem as all of us were quite willing to camp. But few of us knew beforehand, that camping was the order of the day and therefore did not plan accordingly. i.e. no sleeping bags, though there were foam mattresses which, I noticed, originated in Uganda. It did not matter though as for most of the time it was warm enough and when it did turn a bit chilly nobody bothered too much if they had to sleep in their clothes. I don’t wish to sound disparaging. The whole laid-back effect was very relaxing and, as I soon learned, typically Tomas. The company was excellent as was the food and drink. Rob proved to be a fine and industrious cook and Tomas a more than generous host.

Monday was spent exploring the island. We ate lunch at a restaurant. It was discovered that you had to order the meal about 90 minutes before it would arrive. But when it did, it was excellent, provided that you stuck to prawn curry. Which is what we did. On the Tuesday, we rented a dhow with the intention of going to swim off one of the islands. As there was very little wind, the “skipper” persuaded us that this would be a bad idea as it would take all day to get there. Instead he press-ganged some oarsmen to row us to the main land where we swam and explored rock pools. It was a lovely setting and reminded me of my first trip to Mozambique aged 4 when we visited Paradise Island on a family holiday.

Part of the purpose for the trip was the opportunity to go and explore a piece of land that was up for sale a few miles north of the island. We loaded bags and some supplies onto the back of a truck while we all boarded an open motor boat. Essentially a dhow with no sail but a 15 hp engine instead. It was a calm sunny day and off we set in high sprits. After an hour or so we stopped for a swim. It turns out that Rob was a free diver. You know one of those people who dive deep, without scuba. Under his guidance I managed to dive what he estimated to be 7m. I was impressed until I learned that his record is 65m, albeit on a sled.

Boat Trip Outgoing

After a journey of about 3 hours, we reached our destination. The vendor, who had driven ahead in the truck, was a rather decayed gentleman of questionable ethnicity, who rejoiced under the stellar name of Omar but refused to let any inferred Islamic associations interfere with his impressive capacity for the consumption of alcohol. He had rather thoughtfully prepared for us a repast of crabs and prawns, accompanied by a couple of bottles of wine. We sat at one end of a veranda in the collapsing remains of a house that had seen better days. At the other end, various hangers on pottered around a fire and an old tin can from which our current meal had emerged and from which further meals would in due course emanate.

Signs of better times were indicated by an avenue of coconut palms that led to the ruins of a much grander house. Omar claimed that when he was a young man the farm had been prosperous, with cashew and mango plantations as well as much wildlife. He had personally shot 7 black rhino and had the horns to prove it. This news was greeted with mixed feelings. On one hand we were all horrified that he had shot rhino on the other glad to know that they had been around as recently as that and that with a bit of time, money and dedication they could perhaps be reintroduced.

The house where we were camped was next to the beach, which at low tide stretched for a couple of hundred meters. Beyond that was a large horse-shoe island with trees and mushroom-shaped rock formations. It really was a lovely sight. The water was beautifully clear and the sand white and soft.

After lunch we went for a drive round the property, but as it was rapidly getting dark we did not get very far. We repaired to the veranda for drinks, during which chef appeared with a live chicken. After a bit of negotiation with Omar he went to the back of the house. A bit of a squawk, and the next thing we knew, dinner was stewing away in the old tin can. And a jolly fine dinner it was too.

Afterwards we went onto the beach to do justice to the remaining wine. Tomas insisted that we all sleep on the beach instead of in the cramped and smelly house. Omar thought this a bad idea as it would be too windy. Wisely Jamie and Rob followed his advice. Molly, Peter and I on the other hand were too idle take the mattresses, which by this stage where on the beach, back to the house. None of us had anything to keep us warm apart from a kikoy (sarong), or so we thought, until Tomas produced a cashmere blanket, recently given to him by his “fee-yarn-say”. The rest of us shivered our way through the night too cold to move and too cold to sleep. Actually it was not that bad. I awoke at about 4 and re-lit the fire and waited for the sun to rise. Well worth the effort.

The next day we took an extended tour of the property which consists largely of sand-veld. It was pretty and there were a couple of small lakes, some high ground and some lovely big trees. But there had obviously been a fair amount of deforestation and there were lots of  “squatters” on the property, eking out a living growing millet and cassava. Anybody who wanted to make a commercial venture out of the property would have to evict these people, which given the state of affairs, would inevitably prove to be a delicate process. At every village there were numerous children, and it is not difficult to know why, given the effect it must have on the men folk in the neighbourhood, of what I can only describe as the ‘inappropriate pelvic gesticulations’ directed towards us by the young maidens we passed.

At about 11, we began our trip back. Rob wisely, as it turned out, opted to go in the truck. The rest of us piled into the boat and set off. It was just past high tide, so we were able to move off from the beach. We told the boatmen to take us to the island which we would walk across and they should meet us on the other side. Fairly typically, things took longer than expected and there were some quite anxious moments when the party split up and the boat had not arrived. The tide was rapidly going out and if we left it too late, we would be stranded until later that evening. We did however, just make it to deep water. But that is when the fun started. Whereas on our journey there it had been calm and gentle, now there was a strong wind blowing against us and there were some heavy swells. The boat was woefully under powered. The skipper indicated to us that we all sit at the back of the boat, next to one another. We presumed this was to balance the boat. However, it soon turned out that it was nothing more than a ruse to protect him and his mate from the spray. We were all soaked within minutes. It was down one swell, bucket of water in the face, up the next. And so on for four hours. After a while the fixed grin you wear trying to show what a jolly good sport you are and how much you are enjoying yourself begins to make your jaw ache. When you are out in the stormy ocean, sometimes several miles from land, which in any case for much of the time is bordered by coral cliffs; when there are no life jackets or radios, or even a cost guard or rescue service to call; when you are cold and wet and tired, it is possible you may just start to think that perhaps this was not the wisest thing to be doing. And then all of a sudden up pops a little black kid with a pair of goggles and a snorkel and you think, if he is ok, then so am I.

At about 3.30, we staggered back to Isla. After a wash and a change of clothes, we were back to normal, bragging to Rob of our experience and what fun it had been.

The next morning, being Friday, we left to fly home. Peter was hitching up to Pemba to visit some friends while Jamie and Rob were due to fly back to London via Maputo and Lisbon. The five of us plus Mike, flew to Nampula where they caught their plane. We then engaged in a somewhat farcical affair of trying to refuel, clear customs and fly back to Zimbabwe. Unfortunately for us there was a political conference in town which meant the arrival of several bigwigs. As a result various customs officials emerged from the woodwork and drunken stupors to escape reprimand and demand certain fees. Just as we were about to leave a gentleman looking rather the worse for wear demanded $20 for customs. This was a new one on Tomas who had done this trip many times before. I have no doubt that had he been piloting the plane he would have ignored the man and flown off. As it was he stormed off making threatening noises. Eventually they re-emerged, smiles all round. The man who had in the past always been absent from his post had shown evidence that a fee was in fact due. However, having examined the documentation more closely he realised that it was in fact only US$10 instead of $20, especially as a receipt was required. I found this an unusual form of corruption. Normally you get off paying a lower fine if you agree not to ask for a receipt. These people have much to learn.

Nampula Airport

Before we had even alighted from the plane in Zimbabwe, a customs official was demanding to inspect our bags. Judging by his demeanour and the smell of him he, like his counterpart in Nampula, had decided to make an early start to the weekend.

Mike and Molly, who had done a bit of flying herself, had regaled us with horror stories about the incompetence of the air traffic controllers in this part of the world. Irrespective of one’s attitude to colonialism, English is the international language of air traffic control (except in France where apparently it is only a “temporary measure”) and it therefore helps if the controllers can speak it. It also helps if they know left from right. Not an assumption to be taken for granted by pilots new to the region. One pilot without an instrument rating inadvertently got caught out after dark and had to be guided in by ATC. It got so confusing that eventually the pilot of a passing BA Jumbo en route to Joburg guided him home.

It was satisfying to note that on our return to Charles Prince, one of the armoured cars was no longer at is base at the end of the runway. Instead it was stuck at the entrance to the car park where it had broken down. Cars were forced edge carefully around it. You might have expected a degree of embarrassment by the brave soldiers defending the sovereignty of their country, but not a bit of it. They could not have been less concerned.

On Saturday, I was having elevenses with, Hugo and Molly in Harare. While I was there, Molly got a call from Tomas a mutual friend who had various properties and businesses around Southern Africa, including a villa on Isla de Mozambique to which he was inviting them to visit. Molly told Tomas that Hugo would not be able to take the time off as he had too much work to do, and added rather unconvincingly, nor could she. However, after a nanosecond, she decided that perhaps she could and suggested that Igo instead of Hugo.(Geddit?) I leaped at the opportunity and so it was agreed that they would pick me up the next morning, Sunday, and we would drive to Charles Prince Airport, where Tomas would meet us.

Charles Prince is the second airport serving Harare and is mostly used by private and small commercial craft. Following the arrival at Harare International airport of a plane full of suspected mercenaries in March, the government has become decidedly paranoid about the prospects of a coup attempt in this country. Consequently it has arranged for the Army to position an armoured car and an anti-aircraft gun at each end of the runway. You can imagine that this is slightly disconcerting for inexperienced pilots who probably give more thought than most to the possibility of an aborted take off. How is the gunner likely to react if he sees an aircraft speeding straight towards him when it should be heading into the sky? With a nervous trigger finger, I suspect. But such considerations on the part of the government would be thinking too far ahead.

Incidentally, I learned recently that the leader of the “suspected” mercenaries is one Simon Mann, son of the English cricketer who was once renowned for being on the receiving end of a particularly ferocious bit of bowling from a South African player, also called Mann. It led John Arlott to comment that this was a prime example of “Mann’s inhumanity to Mann”. I suspect the son is receiving some pretty inhumane treatment in Cikurubi prison right now.

We arrived at CP where we commenced customs and immigration procedures. Being a non-resident, I had to pay a US$30 airport tax, which is somewhat exorbitant, as there are few facilities at the airport to justify the fee. (Residents only pay Z$24,000 (£2.40)). But that is not what grated most. I only had a $100 bill on me. Did the authorities have change? Of course not. They never do, unless it suits them. No amount of castigation has any effect. They are completely shameless. Luckily between us we were able to find the right denominations. One makes the effort, as much to deprive them of ill-gotten gains as to avoid one’s own pecuniary disadvantage.

I had only met Tomas once before at a birthday party of his about 4 years ago, but he knows my brothers fairly well. He owns a 6-seater twin prop Beechcraft Baron, which impressed me no end. As he had just that morning flown in from Kansas City via London, he elected to sit in the back and try and get some sleep. Being considerably heavier than Molly, I was lucky enough to get to sit in the front, which gave me an excellent view. It was a three-hour flight, heading north-east over the border into Mozambique. We stopped at Nampula to clear customs and refuel. Nampula no doubt exists for a reason, though I did not discover what that might be. Nothing much happens in Mozambique on a commercial or industrial basis to justify a settlement of more than a few shacks so presumably it is an administrative centre where those fortunate enough to have government jobs are able to misspend and embezzle the aid money provided by the West. From the air, the town is pretty scruffy and unappealing. However, the airport is impressive for two reasons. One, the landing strip is free of anti-aircraft guns, and two, it is surrounded by some very picturesque scenery. Extraordinarily shaped gigantic granite monoliths emerge from an otherwise flat landscape creating a spectacular silhouette.

Customs and immigration procedures passed relatively uneventfully and we continued the last half hour of our trip. As we approached the island, Tomas asked Mike, the pilot, to buzz the house on the off-chance that someone would be there to come and pick us up from the airport. He had been unable to get through on his phone. Not that we held much hope of success given that Tomas did not own a car and the three guests who were already at the house were out from the UK and unlikely to be in a position to organise something. Anyway, having landed, he set off for the main road where he managed to flag down an obliging lady in a pick-up truck who for a small fee was able to drive us to the house. I should explain that the island is separated from the main land by a causeway, stretching three kilometres.

Isla de Mozambique, designated a world heritage site by the UN, used to be the capital of the Portuguese colony until the late 19th century when under threat form the British imperialist expansionism by the likes of Cecil Rhodes, it was deemed prudent to relocate to Lourenco Marques, now Maputo. The island boasts the Southern Hemisphere’s oldest European building, being a small church erected in 1522. (That is of course if you accept the theory that Great Zimbabwe was built by the Shona people without the guidance of Portuguese stone masons.)

Chapel on Isla de Mozambique

Model of Fort

Fort Buildings

Exterior of Fort

Next to the chapel is a massive fort, the building of which also began in the early 16th century. It is an impressive structure in that its design incorporates a notable method for collecting fresh water. Rainwater drains from rooftops and other surfaces into a network of channels and into an underground reservoir carved out of the rock. It is still used by the locals as one of the principal sources of potable water on the island. Around the perimeter of the fort there must be upwards of 50 massive cannons. Most of them bear a date of around 1808-1820. Needless to say, the fort is in a state of disrepair, though some maintenance work was being carried out. This consisted of several men rather languidly applying splashes of white-wash to arbitrary bits of wall. The project is being funded by the UN which has stipulated that entrance to the fort be free. The keys to the main gate are kept by an occasionally-present officer who would have won few prizes for his communication skills. The current incumbent’s predecessor was appointed after much deliberation by a team of UN and local officials. Coincidentally he happened to be the brother of the governor of the island. This noble gentleman took it upon himself to subsidise his personal income by charging a fee to any islander wishing to draw water from the reservoir. Naturally this met with some resistance by the locals. He was eventually replaced by ….. the governor’s nephew. So much for socialist ideals and UN impartiality.

Roughly 6,000 people live on the island which is about 2 km long by about 500m wide. Periodically various UN agencies try and relocate the peasants onto the mainland, but they soon return or are replaced by newcomers. The remnants of colonial civilisation offer too many attractions. When the Portuguese left the country in 1974, the Frelimo government nationalised most of the land. Consequently very few properties remain in private hands. However, there are a few and Tomas managed to acquire one of these a couple of years ago. In its heyday, the town must have been wonderful with brightly coloured Mediterranean villas, hotels and official buildings lining the waterfront and streets. Since the departure of the Portuguese, much of the place is in ruins. Almost no maintenance has been carried out on any of the buildings, though a few are still in habitable condition.

Tomas’s villa, which is still in the process of being rebuilt, is big and beautiful. It is right on the waterfront, the waves lapping against it at high tide. As it is on the west side of the island facing the main land it is sheltered from the ocean and there is little risk of tidal or storm damage. The sunsets are incredible. Adjoining the villa on the right there is a ruin, ready for redevelopment, while on the other is another villa that serves as a mosque, this being a largely Islamic community. The name of the country is derived from that of an Arab trader, (slave trader?) called Musa Al Big or Mossa Al Bique or Mussa Ben Mbiki. Apparently!

A feature of the island is that given the large number of inhabitants and the lack of modern urban infrastructure, there are very few sanitation facilities. I.e. people shit on the beach. And they do it with out any shame or embarrassment. As you walk along, you will see somebody suddenly lift her skirt or lower his trousers and have a squat. They will then shuffle off to the water’s edge to rinse off. After prayers at the mosque, it seems to be the accepted norm to stick your bum over the balcony and crap into the water. I kept expecting to hear Julie Andrews/Mary Poppins sing a warning:

“Heed the turds, Watch where you stand, The faeces of Isla, Cover the land”

But don’t let the scatological references put you off. The sea washes everything away and as Tomas pointed out the practice will keep mass tourism away. The trick is to take a boat to one of the nearby, uninhabited islands.

Sunset from the Villa

It was a diverse bunch of chaps that I began working with. Apart from one of the radio controllers, I was the only white person there. West Indians, Pakistanis, Indians and West Africans seemed to dominate. The owner was from Sri Lanka. It was before the East European invasion, so there were no Poles or Czechs. The irony of the situation was that despite their various races most of them were English born and their accents were certainly more local than mine. They complained good naturedly about the fact that ‘bloody foreigners’ from Africa had come to take their jobs.

My first few calls were not exactly raving successes. I completely failed to make it to the first pick up as I could not locate the address. The second I picked up but could not find the destination and nearly had an accident at a roundabout. Getting to understand the instructions given to me over the radio was tricky as well. Not only did I struggle with accents, I often had no idea where I was being sent. There were no GPS systems to help; it was the A-to-Z for me. Gradually, however, I learned the ropes and became quicker at navigating my way around London. The faster I was, the more fares I picked up. There seemed to be a steady supply of business so ultimately my earnings depended on how many hours I was prepared to work. As a driver returned from one job, he would give his name to the controller who would add it to the bottom of the list. He would get his next job when he had made it to the top. Of course if there were no drivers back at base the controller would summon us on the radio and send us on our way to pick up new business.

Most of my clients were pretty mundane. Women with shopping, kids being collected from school, travellers going to the airport or needing to be fetched from the station and so on. Most of them never talked much. But I had some interesting customers as well. One was a chap I picked up in Barnes to take to Jack Barclay in Berkley Sq where he was collecting his new Rolls Royce, or perhaps it was a Bentley. We chatted amiably along the way discussing this and that. Actually, he mostly asked about me and what I was doing and why I was driving mini cabs. Then, to my surprise, he asked if I would like to work for him as his chauffeur. It occurred to me that this might be quite an interesting occupation, for a few months anyway, and I would have seriously considered it had I the time to spare. As it was  I had every intention of returning to Zimbabwe, and I imagine he would have wanted someone to work on a permanent basis. Still I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I accepted the job. He seemed like a pleasant chap and it would have been interesting to learn how the other half lives. Though the attraction might have soon waned after a few hours spent sitting in a car late at night waiting for him to emerge from a night club.

The strangest passenger I had came from Ealing. He wanted me to drive him to Lambeth Palace, residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. When we arrived he asked me to wait while he conducted some business. After about half an hour I was getting a bit anxious that he had done a runner, but he eventually emerged and asked me to take him to Westminster Cathedral, the headquarters of the Catholic Church in England. My curiosity was beginning to be aroused but I said nothing. Again I waited as he went inside. This time when he emerged, he requested that I take him to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. I became somewhat alarmed at this as it was a long way to go and the fare would be steep. But he, sensing my concern, pulled out a wadge of £20 notes and assured me that he had more than enough cash to pay. So off we went.

Curiosity got the better of me and I asked him what was going on. He then told me this most bizarre story. A few months earlier he had, or so he told me, some how become involved in an experiment with some shadowy people that involved sophisticated electronic equipment being implanted throughout his body. The net result of this was that aliens were communicating with him directly. Initially he was not too perturbed by this state of affairs but more recently he had become troubled by their constant interference in his life. So he had decided that he voices must be got rid of and thus he had gone to the Archbishop of Canterbury in order to be exorcised. At Lambeth Palace they had told him that Anglicans did not do exorcisms but that he should go to the Catholics who specialised in this sort of thing. That, I felt, was uncharitable, not just to him, but to their rivals across the river as well. The Catholics, however, very sensibly told him that if it was electronic equipment that was the conduit for the voices, it would require electronic engineers to remove it all. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

It was difficult to know what to say to that kind of story. To laugh would have been rude and unhelpful and on a selfish note, would have probably cost me my fare. I think I made sympathetic noises, but was otherwise at a bit of a loss.

We arrived at Brize Norton and I waited another hour or so while I saw him being accompanied to various offices before finally returning to the car. I asked if he had had any luck. He replied that he had not but that he was still optimistic. I drove him home and he paid me handsomely for my time. I felt very sorry for the poor chap. He appeared perfectly rational in all other respects and seemed totally convinced that he was indeed in the thrall of alien entities. A few days later he called the cab company and asked specifically for me. I did not have the heart to take his money and so turned it down.

One of my frequent fares was a lady who lived in Chiswick. She was a film producer who had offices in Soho. She would have me take her into work fairly often and as it was a long trip we enjoyed chatting and so built up a bit of a rapport. One day, after I had dropped her off, she asked if I could take her into the West End later that evening. I replied that I could not as I was otherwise engaged. I had been in London a few months by this stage and was having a fairly active social life. I had gone on several dates with a girl whom I had met through one of my cousins. Lily worked in fashion and seemed to know lots of people around London. On that particular evening she had invited me to attend an event at the Savoy. Seeing as she liked to tease me about my Zimbabwean accent, her own was cut glass, she seemed remarkably unconcerned by the fact that I was merely a cab driver. Nevertheless, I thought that she was being very brave to take me to such a grand function. In any event I managed to get hold of a dinner jacket and we arrived at the venue amidst the splendour of somewhat more fashionable company.

At the entrance to the ballroom was a plan with the seating arrangements and we found the directions to our table.  There I was introduced to her godmother, our host, who was, as it turned out, the chairman of the charity which we were there to support. Needless to say I have forgotten its name. As we took our places at the top table, I surveyed the room to gaze up on, what had rapidly become for me, the lesser guests. My eyes came to rest on the table next to us where was seated my friend the film producer. Sitting with her were the actor Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) and the eternally beautiful Susannah York. Producer lady and I caught each others eyes. With a smile and a deferential nod by her to her cab driver, we raised our glasses in a toast.

Later that evening, Ms York awarded Lilly and me a prize for our excellent jitterbugging. Or was it some other dance?

As soon as was reasonable the next morning, I took a chance and made a call to my godmother who allegedly lived in Geneva, and whom I had not seen or heard of since my christening many ages ago. I had been given a number for her, some years earlier, by my much older cousin a close friend of hers. I had tested it once without luck so I did not hold out much hope for it working on this occasion. By some stroke of fortune, the number was correct and my godmother herself answered the phone. Her apparent delight at hearing from me made the disappointment of the past few days much more bearable. She insisted that I get on a train and come and stay with her and her family at the other end of the country, in a small town outside Geneva.

Jenny greeted me with a great deal of genuine warmth and enthusiasm. She had often stayed with my family in England during her early twenties and thus it was that she had been given the singular honour of being asked to be my godmother. She was Canadian by birth and was married to a doctor who worked for the International Red Cross. She was blond, slim and elegant with a warm and cheerful character. She and her husband could not have been kinder or more considerate. She fed and entertained me and introduced me to various interesting and unusual people of whom Switzerland seems to have many – emphasis on the unusual. She told me of some of the strange customs that existed in her adopted country. The Swiss never entertain at home, only in restaurants. They report on each other’s activities and behaviour. Should you place your rubbish in a pink bin liner, say, as opposed to a black or grey one, the authorities would undoubtedly be informed. The one custom that peeved her most, understandably so, concerned the use of the nuclear shelter. Every village and community had one of its own. Neither she nor her husband was a natural Swiss citizen, so in the event of a nuclear attack, she would not be allowed into the village shelter. Her husband, however, would be welcomed in, since he was a doctor. Her two daughters would be allowed in as they had been born in Switzerland. She alone would be left to face the ensuing devastation. It sounded to me that a nuclear winter would have been a lot warmer than a Swiss summer if that was the attitude of the natives.

She gave me a guided tour of Geneva and drove me around the country side, even taking me to Gstaad. There I was able to visit the hotel I was supposed to have worked in and confront the manager who was expected to have given me the job. That the woman existed meant, I suppose, that there had been an element of good intention on the part of my erstwhile friend Moira, (she became erstwhile pretty damn quickly following my first day in Switzerland, I can tell you) but that is as much as I was prepared to concede. Incidentally, I never saw her again, Moira that is. By the time I returned to Zimbabwe, she had gone to live in New Zealand!

Eventually, after a few happy days, Jenny took me to the airport and put me on a plane to Heathrow with messages of greeting for those members of my family whom she used to know.

I arrived in London in time to enjoy many of the festivities leading up to Christmas. My youngest sister had just become engaged and there was a party to celebrate the occasion at the house of my older sister with whom I would be staying. It was just the occasion I needed to welcome me back to England.

The eighties were a good decade for me. I was carefree, healthy and invincible as only the youthful can be. Though I was perennially broke, I had not yet become burdened by the need for money beyond providing the essentials for survival. I was always able to make do with very little and have a great deal of fun in the process, relying on my limited wits and an unhealthy dose of optimism.

Towards the end of 1985, I decided to leave my job as a farm manger in Zimbabwe in order to attend agricultural college. It was late in the day for such an undertaking, many of my contemporaries having completed their studies several years earlier. Nonetheless I concluded that if I was going to progress in this field, if you will excuse the pun, it was something I would have to do. There was an 8 month gap between my leaving my job and the start of the course, and so I decided to use that time for some travel. I was determined to become a proficient skier and so I concocted a plan to spend the winter in Europe.

I had little money and what I did have I was not allowed to take out of the country. Strict currency controls existed in Zimbabwe at the time and I was limited to a travel allowance of £200, over and above the cost of my air ticket. (Anybody who thinks the country was being well run by Mr Mugabe in those early years of independence, has a short memory). Given my budgetary constraints, it was obvious that I would need to get a job to subsidise my recreational activities. So it was that I began enquiring about finding work in a ski resort. A friend who claimed to know Switzerland well, soon told me that she had found me a position at a hotel in Gstaad working as a cleaner. This would provide me with board and lodging and some cash to pay for the ski passes etc. She was vague about the details but insisted that it was all on course. I still had not heard from the establishment by the time I bought and paid for my air ticket and was relying entirely on my friend for information. This was long before emails and cell phones made communications as easy as they are today.

The time came for my departure and all I had was the name and number of the hotel and the name of a person to contact there, but still no confirmation of a job. I arrived in Zurich one morning in early December with a pack on my back, an address book and not much else. I called the hotel and asked to speak to the contact. She it turned out had never heard of me and only vaguely remembered our ‘mutual friend’. Unfortunately, she was unable to offer me any work.

‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley’. Despite Burns’s sympathetic sentiments, even I would admit that my schemes had not been particularly well laid. There was nothing for it but to get on a train and head for the town of Lech in Austria where I had heard there might also be work opportunities. The wonderland sights of an Alpine winter were lost on me as I made a rather gloomy journey to the resort during which I reflected on my unhappy situation. I arrived in the town and checked into the cheapest B&B I could find. The next day was spent on a fruitless quest visiting every hotel and lodge to ask if there was any work. It did not help that I did not speak German and my French was the most basic. I was usually given one of two standard excuses. Either it was too early in the season and the hotels were nowhere near full or it was too late and all the staff had already been employed.

As evening approached and I wandered, weary and dejected, back to my lodgings, I watched with envy as happy, laughing tourists swept down the slopes on their skis and proceeded gaily through the warm welcoming doors of the many bars and restaurants that lit up the resort. Smug bastards.

I had with me the business card of a man who had once been a client of mine when I was a safari guide on the Zambezi. He owned a small hotel in Stuben, a small town between Lech and St Anton. After a meal of German sausage, a couple of rolls and a pint of milk purchased from a supermarket, I gave him a call and asked if I could come and say hello. Poor Nikki. Nobody expects people to follow up on such invitations. They are supposed to be forgotten the moment after they have been issued. He was nevertheless quite friendly when I arrived by bus the next morning, and though he could not offer me a job – his hotel was small, as indeed was the resort – he would take me to St Anton where I would possibly have more luck. After another night in another B&B, which I could ill afford, I still had no joy in finding work. At last I decided to throw in the towel and head back to Zurich from where I would catch a plane to London.