Zambia World Wide

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).