Zambia World Wide

It was the best of times, the very, absolutely wonderful, best of times. I was escaping the languor of Livingstone, over-sexed Jaapie roommates, beer-swilling Neanderthals, dimly lit, dismally dull, sorting offices and muscular virgins in possession of an insurmountable determination, where I was concerned anyway, to maintain their unsullied status; plus the mind-numbing tedium of a locale with a single, albeit magnificent, watery point of interest.

Roll on the fleshpots of Lusaka, 300 miles northwards and a claimed several decades away in social enlightenment.First, however, I had to prepare my knackered conveyance, the far-from-perfect-Prefect, for the arduous journey to the Capital.

The seedy Asian service shack I used, was located in what passed for a back street in the town, although it easily could have been mistaken for a shebeen in the native township and may even have performed that function, after the day�s greasing was done and the evening�s was about to commence.

The proprietor, on learning of my motoring plans, called all of his cohorts together and, in his barely comprehensible, sing-song style, vocalised the intention of this loco sahib to attempt a Lusaka expedition up and over the many sheer drops of the intervening escarpment. Moreover, his conveyance was what appeared to be the vehicular equivalent of a consumptive lemming. The stunned silence that followed this disclosure then provoked energetic mirth in the scruffy assembly. Oh how they howled at the likelihood of my imminent death by plunging over the edge of a cliff.

Huffily, I decided to find an alternative set of technicians.

This was not a problem. Around the corner from the first service station, lurked several others, each owned and run by denizens of the sub-continent, displaced to Central Africa, their mechanical ingenuity to visit on impecunious car owners like me. Clearly, the phone line from his (probable) cousin had hummed with a message on how to handle the crazy traveller with the would-be hearse.

�Of course this magnificent example of Ford engineering will be coaxed into undertaking the simple journey up to Lusaka�, dissembled the dusky head incompetent. A turn of a spanner here, a dab of grease there, an application of some wondrous mineral oil not yet known to the car marque�s main dealer would transform this sturdy little car into a motorised magic carpet, that would lightly whisk the naive sahib to the nation�s�premier city�in �a very short jiffy, cash before leaving, of course�.

And so the wobbly rust bucket and I�embarked northbound�at midnight, the better to take advantage of the cooler night air and traffic-free tarmac. The Bishop of Livingstone being unavailable, the entire register of Mess occupants saw me off, with blistering Anglo-Saxon and Afrikaaner oaths and a parting gift of a terrifyingly proportioned black cat that someone had found wandering the garden, devouring wildlife. The clutch engaged and Livingstone and I were permanently parted; no tears were shed on either side.

The feline, which I�was convinced was part panther, decided that my shoulder was�his preferred�lounge for the journey and a single look into�a set of�menacing eyes was sufficient to convince me that argument was futile. So, like a motoring Short John Silver, sans eye patch or parrot,�it was up and into the enveloping darkness that bounded the town, the little Prefect purring contentedly in time with my unwelcome companion.

Uneventful mile after starry mile was eaten up surprisingly easily and, before I knew it, we were at the foothills of the escarpment where the road started to elevate, at first gently, then sufficiently that the little engine commenced groaning in protest, then so alarmingly that all three of us made up a noisy trio of unharmonious sound: the motor screaming for relief; the cat meowing for escape from this rackety Hell; with both added to my strident, totally discordant renditions of pop songs, in an attempt to drown the pain of having to listen to the noise of the others.

Forward movement up the rising slopes was only achieved by overuse of first gear and I was grateful for the absence of rain, which at least enabled forward vision, and for the teeth-chattering, external chill, which kept the engine temperature at a high, but still operational, level. Edmund Hillary felt no more exhilaration, when he breached the summit of Everest, than did I, when I discerned that the road was starting to point downwards. The escarpment had been conquered, at least one side of it.

Stopping for bladder relief, my pantherian companion made a break for it, uttering sounds which, if I was fluent in Cat, probably would have interpreted as �Sod this crazy caper; I�ll take my chances in the Bush�. Despite his penchant for caressing my left shoulder in a sort of feline foreplay, we had never really bonded in the relationship, never mind consummated it, so the divorce was a matter of no moment for either of us. I like to think that it was an amicable split, however, with no hard feelings on either side, or backward glances, for that matter.

The hilly descent thereafter, was a breeze, if �breezy� may be deployed as the adjective used to describe the destructive winds which accompany a Caribbean hurricane or an Indonesian typhoon. It was thrilling, though, and both I and the Prefect welcomed the opportunity to disengage the gearbox and free-wheel down the slopes, emulating the future, when (barely) related Formula Fords would scream round racetrack corners at breath-taking speeds and with g-force dynamics.

Of course, these highly tuned, skillfully maintained examples of the thoroughbred automobile had not been carelessly pummelled by the blundering hands of an unqualified bunch of self-taught mechanical dunces, prior to the high velocity cornering, as had my sad wee�Dagenham chariot. Nevertheless and, in fairness, to the credit of the aforementioned greasy maladroits, the jalopy and I made it around each bend, despite the accompaniment of a shrill screeching, which had hitherto been the province of my vanished shoulder ripper.

My�heroic Uncle�Harry, who played a giant role in modelling me into the barely�passable human that I am today, failed utterly, however, in his attempts to�pass on either his intuitive or developed engineering skills to his favourite nephew, although it wasn�t for the want of trying. It was just that he found that a sharp slap to the side of my head and my dispatch indoors to sample my Auntie�s equally brilliant cooking,�left him alone to repair�my various broken toys/implements/bikes/cars in his workshop, thus saving him time, frustration and the possibility of a visit from the child protection authorities.�As a result of his failure to persevere with my mechanical training, therefore,�I had no idea that the screaming sound emanated from excessively tightened wheel bearings, crying out for mercy under tortured duress.

As I have confessed several times, in this series of sleep-inducing recollections, I have long embraced atheism, on the basis that, even if an all-powerful deity does exist and He tolerates the stupidity, cruelty and fecklessness of Mankind, just to confirm His suspicion that we�re really just a mixed bunch of self-aggrandising dickheads consumed with the greedy pursuit of acquiring stuff or�genocidal monsters or�cupidic politicians or all three categories, then He ain�t the sort of guy with whom I�d like to spend an evening mixing soft Scottish malt and hard polemics.

If I�m wrong in that approach, as I shall discover soon enough if, shockingly,�I am ever called to judgment, then, for reasons beyond comprehension, I was saved on that starry night in the high elevations of the windy escarpment. For, had a wheel bearing snapped as I careered around corners at ridiculous speeds for which the Ford was never designed, then my last resting place would have been at the base of a sheer drop and the�final words I would have heard would have been �Told you so, you purrverted Scots berk� (in Cat) and �How could you do this to me?� (in Jewish Mother).

But the bearings did not�explode, the wheels did not�detach and the Flight of the Prefect into the Zambian unknown never occurred, thus enabling me to be able recall the miracle 49 years later and, with a few geriatric tremors admittedly, simultaneously to bore my dwindling band of long-suffering readers. A Win/Lose for both sides, in other words.

As if to reinforce joy in living, we coasted into the final, flatter 50 miles or so, accompanied by a staggeringly gorgeous sunrise, which, as I was to learn, was an African bush speciality. Like its opposite number, twilight, it didn�t last long, but made a hell of an impression whilst it existed, which is exactly how my missus used to describe my�unwelcome romantic�assaults upon her person.

Incredibly, especially from the cautious reflections cast by old age, the creaky Ford and I had made the journey successfully across hundreds of miles of empty tarmac, thousands of acres of�hostile bush and against the unsolicited advice of most of sane�Livingstone. Hah!�How did these lily-livered�yeller-bellies ever succeed in the pioneering business? My mother would have had kittens at the very thought of it, of course, but her only chance of that happening was now murderously roaming the hinterland behind us. Triumphalism coursed through my teenage soul, as onwards to Lusaka we trundled.

I�m not a great advocate of anthropomorphism, but I swear that the swaggering satisfaction I felt upon�reaching the last few miles to the capital, somehow was communicated to the Prefect. Like a little square Herbie, the machine definitely seemed to shake off the dust of the hard part of the journey, sit up a tad more proudly and find a couple more mph from innards�which�had been begging for mercy only a�few dozen miles earlier. There definitely was some joint preening going on, when we entered the only petrol station we�d encountered since leaving Dullsville.

Unfortunately, though the ever-modest Ford was happy with�simple replenishment of its fuel and oil, the only available comestible for humans was a disgusting leathery dog chew substance, which provided me with my first experience of biltong. There wasn�t ever going to be a second, as another notch on the belt of my journey towards vegetarianism was carved, but it was going to take more than a touch of starvation to suppress the excitement I was feeling, as we entered the outskirts of Lusaka and headed for the Customs offices, which were easily found in the modern Post Office building on the optimistically titled Cairo Road.

At 7am, it was still�optimistically early to expect civil servants to be at their desks, so Ford and I took a little tour of the area and it became clear that this was not the one deceased horse town that I had�abandoned the day before. Commerce on the dual carriageway�Road to Egypt�was already underway, with deliveries to the Kees department store and Holdsworths, the chemist. Parallel with the main street was an avenue of bazaars, clearly the Asian Quarter, but buzzing with people; mostly males just wandering, holding hands in that peculiar African style that is anathema to robust heterosexuals of my ilk (which statement, my dear spouse avers, highlights my latent gayness, about which she has always harboured suspicions).

Encouragingly, there were lots of women of all hues too; some sari clad, many in vivid native robes and, best of all, plenty in stylish western dress. It all looked comfortably familiar to this city boy and my spirits were high, especially considering that�I had been driving all night long and relying on dead leather for protein intake.

�Report to Collector McCormack on Monday� said the Shrew of Head Office, so that was what I made to do, the customs offices being on the third and fourth floors of this modern building, which housed the central post office, also. Paddy McCormack was a thickset, civilian dressed character, with a bushy moustache, which bristled, but no more so than his welcoming demeanour. �So you�re the smart mouth Jock they�ve sent me in place of a proper officer� he said, with tonal warmth several degrees colder than a penguin�s backside and a glowering look on his hairy visage.

As a practising Glaswegian, I was completely familiar with the tactic of getting one�s retaliation in first, so I rolled with that punch, smiling wanly as if mildly appreciative of what could have been a jocular initiation. It wasn�t. �I�ll tell ye at the outset, any nonsense from ye and yer feet won�t touch� said he, in perfect Irish. Clearly he had been more than briefed with someone else�s jaundiced views of my personality and talent, or lack of both (and now you know why my hatred for the Deputy Controller�s harpy PA is so intense, even almost five decades later).

It�s definitely not career enhancing, to smack your new boss in the teeth, even verbally,�on first meeting him, but there seemed little point in showing restraint when he was deploying exactly the same technique on me,�despite being unaware of my�sweet modesty and�breathtaking talent for the job. Happily, his 2i/c, a chubby, bow-legged, ginger bloke, Gordon Murray, wandered in at that point, speedily assessed the rising temperature in the office and led me off to a less explosive environment, but it wasn�t�my wished-for�introduction to the governmental heartland of the country. �Don�t worry about Paddy� said Gordon, �he�s a bit liverish today�. That was soothing, for I was well used to associating with fiery, hungover Celts. Also, I�m thoroughly conditioned to being traduced by total strangers, even without the excuse of them being half pissed. It comes with my confrontational personality, apparently.

The introduction around the office commenced. Fate ensured that the first foxy-featured phoney who popped up, was Bryson, the shyster extraordinaire, who had piratically filched my expenses on the way into the country. Casting sincerely meant aspersions upon his paternal lineage, I took him to task on the incident and I was sufficiently fired up to do something physical about it, when he smarmily denied any cash had been issued and insisted that there had been nothing to pass on. Given this was said in front of a senior manager, but believing not a single syllable of it, I made some mumbled withdrawal and let it drop... for then. Stand on me, a grudge had been registered; satisfaction would follow, guaranteed.

The rest of the office tour showed that I was about to take my place within a hodgepodge of disparate characters, some of them desperate ones, but the heavenly light beaming out from under His office door illuminated the pathway to Roger Browning�s lair and it was uplifting to meet the Department rou� once again. I can�t believe I wrote that: perhaps the old woman has something in her�suppressed gayness theory, after all. That confessed, I knew the thrill was entirely based on the opposite sensation, especially as He greeted me with the news that I most wanted to hear: �Gerry, you�ll love it, there are�maningi women here�.

That just left the question as to whether they were all short-sighted, uncontrollably horny, foolhardy females, with no sensitivity or sense of smell, the�apparent qualifications�required to enable me to make the�journey into manhood. Still, my faith in His Worship the Seductor was undiminished, for I had seen Him at work, in the womanless (for me) desert that was Livingstone. My confidence levels rose substantially: for�Lusaka was proving to be all that I hoped.

Then the bad news came: whilst a new Customs Mess was being arranged, my accommodation had been booked in Longacres hostel. That wasn�t an attractive prospect, but still considerably less depressing than the even worse announcement of the first assignment that Paddy had bestowed on me; The Officer, Lusaka Sorting Office. Blimey, what did I have to do to escape the Zambian postal system? Sorting uncustomed parcels was definitely not the sort of humping I had been anticipating, but there was no arguing with his Paddyness, so off to the bowels of the building I trotted, into a considerably larger, but just as chaotic, situation as I had found almost�three months earlier. Now, where did I put that helpful Inspectoscope??

Under the flimsy pretext that I needed directions to the hostel and assistance�with my luggage, four of my new comrades and I crammed into the Ford and squeaked off in the direction of the airport, almost making it. Insouciantly cornering just before the compound, the nearside front wheel abruptly detached and pitched us all into a ditch. It�s said that, prior to death, one�s life flashes before one�s eyes. I can affirm that�it also occurs when you realise that a crappy old car, which�you�ve just driven at furiously high speeds around hairpin bends above unfenced 1000 foot drops, has wheels that apparently were affixed to the hubs with bent�Kirby grips.

Youth has a breath-taking contempt for mortality and, at 19, I was no less arrogant than�average�in that regard, but I knew that I just had come within the hand-turn of a bush-league mechanic with a chapatti for brains and less engineering skill than a lobotomised haddock, to laying in small pieces of Scots Lad at the escarpment base. Sobering? You betcha, but the feeling had dissipated by the time I had hauled my whingeing passengers from the bottom of�the smelly trench. That�s�juvenescence for you, as dumb & insensitive as an MP claiming expenses.

Longacres was just slightly better than�my first time impression of it. At least there was food on offer, but my allotted cell was as sterile as before. There was, however, some socialising available and a caf� opposite, which had been shut on my last visit, for some al fresco dining. Admittedly,my initial visit�there was off-putting a touch, when I observed a mammoth nursing mfazi encourage her infant to latch on, by dunking her pendulous, ebony�mammary into the sugar bowl,�before plunging it into�its mouth. Although it could definitely be described as a titillating , if disgusting,exhibition, it did deliver�a lifetime health benefit�by persuading me to have my coffee unsweetened, thereafter.

Next day, I trudged back into Postman Pat territory. This time, however, I started with a few advantages. First, I had a reasonable idea of what was expected of me; second, no-one�with half a brain�wanted anything to do with brown paper and string,�which meant that�I was totally�under-managed,�well suiting�my uncanny ability to irritate bosses. In addition, the role meant that�I fell in with a bunch of cynical expat postal counter operatives, who delivered to me several useful off-job opportunities, not least of which was exposure to the many secretarial types buying services at their counters.

As I settled into life in Lusaka, there was only the reappeared problem of being without wheels again, but re-reading my contract reminded me that the government employment missive that�I had signed, contained a promise to advance me a loan for transport purchase. So, off to the Ministry of Finance I trotted, mis-using one of the GRZ vehicles as a taxi. I wish my life had been one more of co-operation and less of confrontation, but Fate had decreed that it was not to be so, nor has it. Politely told by one of the expat finance geeks that all loans had been suspended, it took much jumping up and down to persuade him, his boss and his boss�s boss that they were contractually obliged to provide one, or, alternatively, a plane ticket back to the UK. They grumpily capitulated and I left with a cheque.

Next stop was Dulys used car lot, where I picked up the least loved auto in their possession: a 1961 Peugeot 203, in a peculiarly French shade of bilious green that resembled the pallor of a corpse�which had expired from Ebola, but which�possessed reclining seats. Proper ones, this time.

I don�t know what it is about me, but (said too�tardily to�avoid severe�grief) my dear�wife apart, I am drawn to the ugly, odd and rejected, in my choice of personal possessions. The Pogo fulfilled those three requirements in spades, as it sat dejected and squat in the corner of that showroom, but, for me, it was love at first sight and I was rewarded by complete reciprocity, from the moment I drove it. BTW, this philosophy can work with the opposite sex too (and probably the same sex, but that�s still untested, as I continue to reject my missus� appalling calumnies). One negotiated deal, including a promise of a colour conversion to grey and the 203 was mine for a modest sum. I returned to the land of tattered parcels and battles with amoral Asian jewellers, with a skip in my step and independent travel in my future.

A week on and things became even better. Number 19, Brecknock Road became the Customs Mess, PWD delivered convict beds and filthy mattresses, plus chunky furniture from around the turn of the century and five of us moved in: His Shagfulness bagged the biggest room, His wondrous infidelities to pursue. I claimed the adjacent space, which meant I almost had a stupendous sex life, apart from being on the wrong side of a studded partition wall. Hey, it was progress of sorts and not much different to living next door to Tommy and Bouncy in Livingstone, apart from the huge variety of�distaff�participants�partnering Browning in the dance of the Beast With Two Backs.

I say five of us were accommodated at #19, but only four were government employees. The fifth was a stray that we had somehow picked up from gawd knows where, probably the gutter, called Tommy Gobey and he bedded down, like the ambulant itinerant he was, in an area through which it was necessary to traverse when moving from one side of the house to another. Audiences didn�t seem to bother him, even when he�d managed to inveigle some half-witted female to share his quarters and the ensuing entertainments were welcome diversions to the rest of�us onanist�perverts. After all, the 1965 Zambia television broadcasts were fairly dire (bet they are still): Gobey in action was much more interesting & instructive. Well, a tad more anyway.

Life in the postal depths wasn�t as remote and disconnected as previously either. I could nip upstairs at will and have a chat with someone of like disposition, which wasn�t everybody, for sure. Within us expats, there existed a coterie of unlikeable weirdoes: one a bearded hippy-type with a really serious disposition, who considered the latest intake of UK secondees as unspeakably racist and imperialist. He was determined to take on the burden of responsibility for all the alleged misdeeds of the British Empire, in a fashion which the rest of us pronounced to be sucking up of the most heinous description, as, indeed, it was. Since one of his amigos was an over-promoted UNIP activist called Nkunika, one of those hard-done-by, smouldering-eyed, non-combatant �freedom fighters� with a hatred for Brits built-in to his DNA, the ultra-liberal Tony Jones was easy to dislike.

It was speedier to develop an animus for�his type in a group, so we did, especially in the case of a tall,�suspiciously tanned, exuberantly coiffed, effete creature, whose shorts were just a�little too�skimpy and a touch too clingy for our chromosomic comfort. Irvin clearly was horrified by anything approaching knockabout working class behaviour. Luckily he left the service soon after, no doubt disgusted by our impure male existence, highly intemperate language and low-life habits. Can't say that I blame him.

And so we settled down to a fun-packed existence at work, in Number 19 and throughout Lusaka. There was plenty of female companionship, but it mostly strayed no further than that, for most of us practicing virgins. The exception, of course, was the Blessed Browning, who only had to stroll through the shopping district, to end up with a notebook full of telephone numbers and immediate dates. On one occasion, he met a firmly engaged girl, who fell so heavily for his piercing blue eyes and BS chatup lines that she consummated the�contact immediately in the�back seat�of�his Vauxhall VX 4/90, then returned to work, as did he.

Nine months later, we saw her pushing a pram in the company of a distinctly glum spouse, previously a fianc�, who had never calculated an extra-curricular,�vehicular liaison into his family planning and was evidently suspicious about his new parental responsibilities.�The Libertine of Lusaka�had no conscience about this,�and, when all�s said and done, he barely remembered the seed-spreading moment, so why should he have? Plus, the infant was plug ugly. Apart from in my existence at the time, sex is a two person tango and, luckily for both parties,�this incident took place�at a point�well�before DNA tests were discovered.

And that wasn�t even a hundredth of the Browning effect. It was fortunate that we had parquet flooring throughout the mess, as any carpet on the route to his bedroom would have disintegrated from the sheer volume of incoming girlie�heels and the subsequent�drenching effect of bitter tears, shed�during the outgoing�trudge of the�ravished and summarily�ejected from�that particular altar of broken dreams. On several occasions I was roused from deep sleep, to find a barely clothed female begging me to escort her back to her husband/fianc�/family/residence because Browning, passion spent, had turned over and gone to bye-byes, callously abandoning his recent paramour to her own devices, half naked and thoroughly used.

To my own disappointment, I�usually acceded to such requests without the moxie to demand a sexual reward. Who'd have believed that a Glaswegian would have a�more�developed moral compass than a�Lothario from Lancing? Especially�when, oftentimes,�I was�subsequently accused of tom-catting, when�observed dropping a tearful wife/woman/daughter home in the middle of the night. I didn�t blame outraged paters or cuckolded consorts for leaping to the wrong conclusion, but, to say the least, it was a mixed blessing to be charged with the offence, without ever benefiting from the alleged crime. On the other hand, I couldn�t object to the unearned�gain of a reputation as a squat Priapicist, since no victim ever wanted to reveal the real truth and that did plenty to build my confidence with the opposite sex. Well, it was a start, at least.

All these non-sexual, sex games were doing nothing for my REM sleep, however, so, when Browning was at his most rampant, I had to prepare an informal rota for the other guys to be called to do some substitute cabbying on my behalf. I never did ask how much tribute they exacted for their taxiing services, but bleary eyes & contented grins at the breakfast table often spoke silent volumes and it seemed politic to leave it at that.

Not that the 'tramp, tramp, tramp' of a succession of tramp feet hadn�t borne some fruit for the sex starved yours truly, but, happily for me, it came about as I returned from an airport shift to find both the Mess and our nomadic house guest, Tommy, trashed by the wild excesses of a woman he had brought �home� with him, with the intention of doing a Browning, but without the latter�s magic touch. Clearly he hadn�t properly communicated his sordid plan to the�intended participant, for, at the sight of him stripped for action, she�developed a violent fit and proceeded to destroy our furnishings and Gobey, in that order.

In any case, I�discovered him to be a gibbering wreck of an unclothed swain, cowering in�the corner of our doorway, whilst she was handing out his clothes to passing house servants. You had to be impressed with such strength of purpose�and I certainly was taken with her. She easily could have settled in Apacheland, Glasgow and never have suffered a minute�s problem with the proletarian hoodlum�derelicts who were her neighbours. So the Gerry cab service swung into action once more�and I returned her to her parents,�very cautiously, but�successfully, suggesting a date for the weekend.

The prim Code of the Hodes precludes me from revealing any details of the subsequent�intense relationship, but let me advise you of this: if an�unwelcome couple of decades of�purity�have finally�to be cast aside, you can�t do better than fulfilling the experience with a fully trained sales assistant�from Holdsworths Pharmacy, in possession of both an encyclopaedic knowledge of stimuli for the tender areas of the�male torso�and�access to�a full menu of modern contraceptives, the latter at staff discount, yet. 49 years on, I salute her memory, her energy�and her all-round�feistiness, with a contented smile and a small, retained shiver of terror.

Lusaka was turning out to be a comfortable fit with my lurid expectations for it. Sure, I now had to pay back the hard-won loan for the Pogo, so money was tight, but I had transport, lots of friends of both sexes, a very pleasant billet�at number 19�and enough to eat. More than sufficient, actually, as I was a defalcating Mess Officer extraordinaire. Even Paddy had backed off from his initial�truculence somewhat, having realised that I knew my way around a sorting office; then again, as a typical Mick�he spent most of his time brooding, bricked up in his office, occasionally feasting on a hunk of raw meat hurled in by one of his acolytes. Pretty well, I had the run of the place; no-one knew or cared where I was supposed to be and, playing on this, I made a spectacular grudge payback.

Bryson had a little cubicle of his own, from which he would disappear on money-making activities that benefited only him. No-one understood quite�how he got away with this, but we decided that, in Federation days, he had been�bush-trekking with Paddy, when a�maniacal Christian, like Alice Lenshina, had attacked the duo with a Gideon Bible or somesuch weapon, the thrust of which Bryson took full in the chest, earning undying gratitude from his boss, who rewarded him subsequently by awarding him unaccountability. Whatever the reason, the lazy, self-serving sod was never seen to do a proper hands turn in the serious service of the Department, reclining secure in his little office, bedecked with personal mementoes and uniform changes.

One glorious�afternoon, aware that he was�immersed in his custom of�brown-nosing the bosses elsewhere in the building, I managed to purloin his adored, pristine,�peaked�Service�cap and, repairing to the lavatory, I posted a chunky, very�personal, steamy deposit plumb in the centre of it, before replacing it in his burrow. It would have been utterly orgasmic to be able to report that he had�plonked it on his skull without noticing the augmentation, but it was sufficiently satisfying�to hear of the wail of horror that he emitted when he discovered my generous�contribution to his headgear.

The rest of the week he spent attempting to detect the culprit, but I was�above suspicion, believed to be�permanently ensconced in my cavern�des parcels. One grudge repaid, joy & satisfaction in abundance and�sunshine let�in on my sad, bitter world. Once again, hurrah for pre-DNA days.

What I was unaware of was that, whilst I was entertaining myself scatologically at Bryson�s expense, a certain Ian Smith was plotting to disrupt the universe of fun-loving, Civil Service secondees in Zambia, by giving my (then) hero, Harold Wilson, the Rhodesian runaround; first�at sea on HMS' Fearless & Tiger, then subsequently�raising the stakes, by declaring a complete rebellion against the Mother Country.

Incidentally, I managed to procure copies of�both UDI editions of the gigantically headlined Rhodesia Herald and�Times of Zambia, which I dispatched to my Dad in Glasgow. In due course, I received a polite thank you: he had read both from cover to cover, enjoyed, particularly, the classifieds section,�and disposed of both newspapers with the kitchen waste. He had a fine sense of history, my dear old father.

I can�t say that I was ever much involved with our southern neighbour, beyond previous short trips across the border at the water park in Livingstone, but they seemed decent enough for a bunch of alleged�rabid imperialists and pretty orderly, if dull. I knew also that the country was the transport hub for most of Zambia's imports,�especially fuel and was a manufacturing base for many desirable luxury items,�for example�Supersonic car radios, after which I lusted as an accessory for my own transport, given that the supplied radio was sufficiently elderly to have seen duty as a communications medium for the French underground in WW2.

Suddenly, though, Rhodesians became, at least in the Zambian press, racist slavers in the Nazi mould and a face spiting, nose-cutting episode ensued, as politicians scrambled to condemn and proscribe all relationships with the South. Confusion reigned throughout the land; petrol rationing was speedily introduced; licences were required for most imports, adding substantially to bureaucratic delays and my personal workload. The comical Zambian Army started digging foxholes in all the wrong places; and the Nkunika-types, plus�their imported acolytes, were incandescent with rage at it all: not that that represented much change from their normal position.

Apart from loud rhetoric and extra politicking, in a country that would have benefited from�a lot less of both, there wasn�t too much change, although squadrons of the RAF suddenly appeared, with�the mandate to keep the country running with flown-in fuel. This was brilliant news for we customs types, because free air trips opened up to other countries, mainly the Congo and Tanzania, but also Kenya, the most desirable destination. In due course, a�few mates and I managed to visit all three, but more of that, later in the sequence.

Seeking experiences not to be found in E. London's Shadwell Pier Head, emphatically was one of the reasons I had signed up for Central Africa in the first place. Now, thanks to intransigence in Cecil Land, the opportunities for these had multiplied manyfold. Bless you Smithy. Harold may disapprove of you and most of independent Africa had uprated that to vitriolic�hatred, but thumbing your nose at The Queen had just improved the�variety in�my life substantially, so what�s not to like? Hey! I never said I possessed political nous. Who does, at age 19?

All I knew was: if this is what happens after 6 months in the country, what would transpire over the next 30? The answer was: plenty and not too much of it palatable to Paddy, it has to be said.

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Copyright: Gerry Hodes January 2014