An odd incident occurred whilst I was waiting at Euston station the other day for my train to take me back to where I still presently live, which happens to be a very pretty part of the British Isles. Don’t laugh, there are such places and I’m not referring to some Polish 18 year olds naked bosom in a brothel in Manchester, but actually a very picturesque place in North Wales, which reminds me of the Chimanimani mountains of formally Rhodesia - albeit by the sea and full of sheep, the edible kind live on the slopes and the two legged type walk around the streets bleating unadulterated crap and vote for labour if it means they can retain their £80 a week certified alcoholics allowance.
There I was sitting outside in the muted sunshine on some wooden bench reading a Jeremy Clarkson book (he of infamous slagging off style, which is right up my street) and occasionally lifting a leg or two to allow a Black gentlemen to sweep mounds of accumulated refuse from the ground due to the fact that he needs a job and Euston has no rubbish bins. (Euston, we have a problem!) I gather that this is a left over policy from the days when mad Irishman liked to place bombs in them. When they got bored with that and gave up, the British government never got around to installing any and don’t have to bother anymore because another bunch of nutters have replaced the bad ‘Paddys’ with mad ‘Jihaddis’. These are all labelled in the press as ‘terrorists’ which is a bit odd as it appears rather a larger population of this planet seem to think otherwise. Tough titty if you on the wrong side of the fence at the wrong time and the wrong people sitting on the juice. (I.e. oil.)
Of course any one coming from Rhodesia knows what a terrorist is. Everyone else in the planet at that time called them freedom fighters! They went on to take over with a little help from some erstwhile ‘friends’; called the place Zimbabwe and turned the whole place into the first imploding star of the Milky Way faster than the big bang.
Whilst the date I decided to travel was the 4th September, missing ‘freedom fighters’ fifth anniversary of the release of the first virtual remake of the ‘70s film Towering Inferno, it didn’t stop me from be terrorised whilst I sat there in my Rhodesia T-shirt with a flame lily on it. I only wore it because it was the only clean shirt I had left and it is new because a nice man called Bill sent it to me for free.
I had been interrupted from my musings of perhaps my imminent fame in the literal world if A) I actually got around to finishing the book I am writing, and B) this style of Clarkson is very cool, if not albeit OTT now and then, but definitely something to take notice of since the guy has had more number ones in the best seller lists than Osama Bin Laden, (whose last novel, How to create breast implants made of chemical explosives to sneak on airplanes, never really took off, but caused havoc with my kids flights to come and see me) by some pesky unshaved yob.
I had been following his antics for several minutes out the corner of my eye and had from the corner of the other one cast about for some form of weapon of mass pest destruction, but the sweeper hadn’t left even a burning fag end to poke into his eye by the time he stupidly arrived at my table in an OXFAM shirt and a large clipboard to proudly ask me in a prepared speech from a brain washed better than his T-shirt if I would like to sign their petition to make poverty history. Had I had a copy of the massive, heavy brand new Rhodesian Memories 1 book I would have made this povo history by beating what remains of his left wing scrambled eggs of a brain out his rather useless brown eye which was happily pooping out Harold Macmillan’s winds of change set to African despots favourite rock anthem, ‘Oh Bob Geldorf, won’t you buy me another newer model Mercedes Benz.’
Before I had time to answer with my carefully prepared speech, the message boy added that “it is to protest that nothing has really happened to ease poverty since the G8 to G give us a break from the tripe summits” which had promised a load of spin guaranteeing that coffee from Kenya cost more at your local supermarket if it has a fair trade label than the supermarkets own brand, which is most probably from the same beans anyway.
I was going to give him a short history lesson as to why I would rather roll his petition up and smoke it along with a little white (excuse the pun) lie that I was an ex Zimbabwean farmer who had until recently been capable of feeding rather a lot of people, (half a starving continent actually) when his software danger program registered the word Zimbabwe and his eyes could see that I was of Caucasian race leading him promptly to apologise profusely and scuttle away! Damn!
Oh well. So what’s this all to do with the book I am attempting to flog here? Not a lot I suppose, except I can proudly puff out my scrawny chest and say, "Two of the stories are mine!" That alone is a reason to buy it in my honest opinion.
Rhodesia doesn’t exist anymore except in cyber space where it is actually more of a common nationality now than ever before. These are stories written by all kinds of folk, most would quite correctly rather have nothing to do with the likes of me. I don’t blame em! Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some might make you hurl, but all will bring a memory back for those that lived or visited this once proud land and its weird mixture of people of all race and creeds. For those that knew nothing of the place it will be an eye opener and more anecdotes must be told and written down, for these people are all ‘The Last of the Rhodesians’
The book is available at WWW.lekkerwear.com for a paltry $49.95 (not Zim dollars)
All details, including size and contents at this url
http://www.lekkerwear.com/information.php?info_id=29
Oh, just for the record…nice to see that the ruling elite of Zimbabwe have just taken over the Red Cross there and quickly confiscated all the new luxury cars that several misguided firms donated!
Till very soon…
Lore out.
p.s. No, I get no royalties…just the fame and hopefully a copy of the book and another free T-shirt…lol
p.p.s. The T shirt I had made up in 1979 after I had left the police. The front says Genuine Rhodesian, and the back Endangered Species.
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