MY FANTASTICAL TOUR TO VISIT FRIENDS

I came over to England on a CHIPAWO World mission with three young people from schools in Namibia, South Africa and Zambia as well as a youth technician from CHIPAWO Zimbabwe. The first few days were taken up with the 2020 Education project launch and other activities in Oxford and then there were three days in London. After seeing them off on their way back to their home countries I spent a couple of days in London with an old family friend and had two delightful dinners in the company of my son.

I then went over to Holland on the ferry, spent a night there and then boarded a few trains to Bremen in Germany. I stayed for a few days with other old friends, and then set off again to Lingen, a small town in the north west of Germany. From there some more trains to the tiny town of Rødekro in south east Jutland, Denmark. Spent the night with friends on the banks of the Åbenrå Fiord. Next day, I was picked up and after dropping in at another old friend’s 75th birthday party in Grasteen, we drove up to the lovely old town of Ribe.

I had hoped to return to England by sea again but unfortunately this turned out to be too expensive and so I boarded the original airline cheapie, Ryan Air, at Billund International Airport, not too far from Ribe, and Ryan Air duly fitted me into my little cage like a battery hen and transported me to Stanstead Airport, not too far from Bishop Stortford in Essex. In the course of my travels I had taken 15 trains!

Another old Zimbabwean friend picked me up at Stanstead and took me back to Hitchin in Hertfordshire. After some days of being treated like a king, I journeyed back to London – again by train, one to St Pancras and the other to the unprepossessing London suburb of Tooting in the borough of Wandsworth, where my son had secured me comfortable and convenient accommodation. Tooting is a very old human settlement though you would be forgiven for doubting it now - dating back to pre-Saxon times. Conjecture has it that its name comes from the Saxon word we derive the modern word ‘tout’ from and meant ‘the people of the watch tower’. The old Roman road from London to Chichester, Stane Street, apparently passed through Tooting and the main road through modern Tooting was built on it.

After one or two more social encounters involving old and new friends, my son and, by lucky chance, my son-in-law, who was in London on business from Cairo, I boarded my Ethiopian Airlines flight at Heathrow. After a smooth though of course never comfortable journey for a man of my height, I arrived home. Homecoming was marked by some whisky, red wine, lovely food and warm and cheery hygge1 in my friend and landlady’s kitchen.

There was a surprise though, reserved for almost the last. In the bus from the terminal out to the plane at Addis Ababa airport, a rather sociable young South African couldn’t help engaging me in conversation. He was obviously bubbling over with his achievement. He and his friends had motored up from South Africa to Addis. He had to go back for one reason or another but his friends were continuing on to Egypt and from there across to West Africa – and as this is something that a friend and I are planning to do in a couple of years time, his description of the road up was fascinating. He actually said that is a couple of years time you will be able to do the journey from Cape to Cairo in a Taz!

HIGHLIGHTS “Children learn, collaborate and make a local impact on global issues in the 21st century” 2020 Education is a new project that envisages schoolchildren getting involved in the campaign to tackle the challenges that the world is facing today and will increasingly have to do in the future. The project believes that these challenges have to be addressed now and recognizes the role that children can play in addressing them. 2020 Education was launched on 26th June in the new Said Business School complex in Oxford where eleven selected English schools presented a 3-minute video and spoke to it for a further 7 minutes. Their presentation demonstrated and described a practical project they were involved in which in some ways addressed global issues but also represented ways in which education in schools can become more dynamic and proactive.

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‘Hygge’, pronounced ‘hu’ as in ‘huge’ and ‘ga’ as in Lady Gaga, means a homely, warm and companionable time – lots of good food and drink

mandatory.

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The schools selected came from all over England and included both private and government schools, a range that saw children from the Dragon School in Oxford, one of the most elite and expensive primary schools in the world, present their project on bee-keeping, and those from a government school, Ilford, in the London borough of Redbridge, present theirs on manufacturing eco-friendly electric racing cars. The organizers saw this project as being rolled out globally and so they were put onto CHIPAWO World, requesting that CHIPAWO World apply for funding from the Commonwealth Foundation for funds for schoolchildren from South Africa to attend. I said I would be more interested in widening the involvement to include schoolchildren from other SADC countries. The Commonwealth Foundation did come up with the funds and that is how I travelled to Oxford with three schoolchildren from Namibia, South Africa and Zambia, along with CHIPAWO Youth Media Technician, Farai Kuzvidza from Zimbabwe. Visas for the UK turned out to be a nightmare in the short time at our disposal. The British Embassy recommends applying 3 months before travelling! They were only issued at the last minute as a result of assistance from the Commonwealth Foundation. At the launch, the southern Africans were extremely impressive. Their 3-minute video and oral presentation was acclaimed as providing the other schools a lesson in presentation skills. The two young women involved were extremely poised and polished MCs, presenting side by side with the Al Jazeera reporter, Rageh Omaar, by whom they were not in the slightest overawed. In addition to the 2020 Education event, the group enjoyed a number of days in Oxford and London and came back with a lot of ideas and opportunities for future engagement. Not only did the young people see a lot of Oxford with its colleges but had very good meetings with people, who found them and their accounts of what they have done and hope to do, fascinating. They also visited Rhodes House in Oxford and met with Rhodes Scholars from Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. There was a very fruitful meeting with the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of The Day, a schools online network with subscribers from all over the world, and it was agreed that they and CHIPAWO World would work together to spread that network into more schools in Africa. Finally, they saw the sights in London and spent a day shopping to their hearts’ content. Farai, the Zimbabwean, also met up with many of his family now living in London. In Zimbabwe the UK is referred to as Unit ‘K’ – in other words just another unit of the large dormitory town not far from Harare, Chitungwiza. An unaccompanied minor with a difference The youngest in the group was Tionge Mbambala from Zambia. He was only 14. His visa application was the most frightening cliffhanger of them all. We only heard the afternoon before leaving for England that his visa was being sent up to Zambia that evening. I had briefed his family that Tionge must be checked-in as an unaccompanied minor (UM) from Lusaka to Addis Ababa, where he would meet up with us for the flight to London. No sign of him in Addis. No sign of him on the plane to London. The only UM on the flight was a girl. When we arrived at Heathrow we were sure that at the last minute, after all

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we had gone through to get him here, something must have gone wrong. At least, four of us had managed to come, we consoled ourselves. As we were collecting our belongings to leave the airport, Farai turned to us and pointed to a young man standing behind him and said: “I think this may be the guy we are looking for.” It was. He had seen us in Addis and shadowed us all the way without once actually approaching us. Finally he heard Farai’s sister, who came to meet him at the airport, exclaim ‘Farai!’ as she ran to meet him. He remembered that there would be a Farai in the group he was to join and sidled up to him. Everyone remembered seeing him at various times along the way, except me. He had come all the way to Addis Ababa, changed planes and managed to board the flight to London – all by himself! But the story was not over. He was due to leave for Zambia a day after the others and so, the day after packing off the other three, I took him out to the airport imbued with the feeling of imminent freedom. I was about to complete my official task and begin my fantastical journey. It wasn’t to be. ‘What could go wrong?’ I thought. ‘Nothing.’ Got to the airport and this time made sure the young man would travel as a UM. I filled in the form and then to my consternation was informed that there was a fee payable - $50 to Addis and $50 to Lusaka! I had travelled light. I had brought just enough cash to make sure that I could pay for transport to and from the airport. I told them I had never heard of a fee for UMs and that I did not have the money on me. I was then informed by a rather nasty red-faced Englishman not only would I have to pay but if I could not, no-one else would be permitted to help either. Anyone making a card or telephone payment would have to be there in person and therefore the child would not go on the flight that evening and what’s more – said with a certain measure of smug and officious satisfaction – there was no available seat to Lusaka for a week! I tried everything I could – to no avail. He would have to come home with me and wait a week in London for the next flight! Of course, the young man himself was not impressed. He could not understand why I had checked him in as a UM when he had proved he was quite capable of catching international flights between London and Lusaka all by himself. Now I realized why his father had not checked him in as a UM for the Lusaka to London trip. He obviously also did not know about the fee and did not have the money. I tried telling the officials that in that case the boy could travel by himself and there was no need to register him as a minor. O, no, that wouldn’t do, they said. He is 14 and must travel as a minor! So I appealed to the Ethiopian man-in-charge. In Amharic. The spirits that assist people who try to speak foreign languages in a dicey situation when they haven’t spoken them for some time or do not know the language too well, came to my rescue. The Ethiopian was human – unlike the nasty man who seemed to take delight in our discomfiture. He melted and said though he could do nothing about today’s flight, I should bring the money and he would get Tionge onto tomorrow’s flight. And this he did. That was a lot better than the young man kicking his heels in London for a week! So the next day, back to Heathrow! Three days in a row on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4 is not one of the most fascinating ways to spend in the region of four hours! But I had got Tionge on the plane home and I was free – so I journeyed back to my friend’s place in North London with

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a light heart and a spring in my step. In a few days I would be surveying the luscious waves and swells of the mighty North Sea on my way to Hoek of Holland and after that other delights. You’ll be alright. It’s like riding a bike! The Cherwell River was flowing full and fast when we took a punt at the Magdalen Bridge Boathouse (pronounced ‘mawdlin’). I had not punted for forty years and naturally I was a little apprehensive about trying to do it again after all these years. I was also responsible for Farai and Busi, who opted to take a chance with me in the punt. No-one was more surprised than Busi herself when she found herself lying flat in the bottom of a very risky looking boat on the rather menacing floodwaters of the Cherwell. She herself declared that she was terrified of water and had never been on a boat before in her life. I suppose it was in the nature of this visit to England that what had once seemed impossible now held few fears – not that she was not totally possessed by fear and every time the boat rocked, she screamed, giggled and chattered all at the same time. To show you how rusty I was, I realised afterwards when it was too late and we were back at the boathouse that out of forgetfulness I had punted from the Cambridge end – Cambridge and Oxford have opposing ideas about which way a punt should point while in motion. It’s all very well to talk about bicycles but the passage of the years sap the strength in ones legs, undermine the sense of balance and replace the careless raptures of youth with the grave misgivings of age. It was a shaky and rather nervous progress we made away from the jetty into the stream but soon even Farai was punting. However, having to learn it all from scratch, it was not long before he gave up exhausted. In any case the return trip upstream required some skill and negotiating the low arch of the bridge into the swiftly flowing current was something of an ordeal. Nevertheless, we acquitted ourselves with some credit and I actually did feel the old technique reviving in one last payment of respects to my vanished salad days on the river – albeit with a lot of water splashing in all directions as I rather flamboyantly and with some vigour heaved the pole into the air in readiness for the next thrust. In my day, there was an old piece of Oxonian upper-class snobbery which held that a good punter should be able to punt with his sleeves down and not get them wet. I certainly failed that test! Testimony no doubt to my being a ‘colonial’ and not ‘one of us’. Of duck ponds and sewage You can travel from Liverpool Street Station, by ferry from Harwich to Hoek of Holland and thence on to any station in Holland for only £39 – if you buy your ticket online in advance and avoid having to take a cabin by travelling during the day. In any case, I did not want to travel at night. I wanted to enjoy every moment of my crossing and daytime was perfect for me. I set out with years of North Sea mythology colouring my expectations - wild and stormy, the death of generations of North England and Scottish fishermen, sailors lost in ships torpedoed or sunk by battleships, both sailing and steam – that is how I thought of it.

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I had crossed it many years ago, probably about three times, but each time by night. At night it was mysterious and dark and did nothing to shatter any illusions – besides I think I crossed it mostly in winter. So I had never actually seen the North Sea in reality. This was going to be my first day trip and I looked forward to beholding it in all its daytime glory. We sailed out of Harwich in a sea mist – so I could see very little further than forty yards on all sides. The mist only cleared a few miles away from Holland. But I could look down. For ages the sea seemed to be only a few feet deep as billows of what seemed to be sand coming up from the bottom of the sea gave it the colour of an old lion. As we progressed, it became apparent that we were now in deep water. But what took me completely by surprise was how calm it was. The only ripples in the sea’s surface were those made by the prow and the stern of the great ferry which, like a block flats that had somehow learnt to sail across water, ploughed its tranquil way through what seemed more like a rather large duck pond than the dreaded – and thrilling - North Sea. What’s more, the water was discoloured by what seemed to me to be sewage. ‘O, North Sea, is this you?’ However this did not mean that I was not enjoying it all. I climbed to the highest deck passengers were allowed onto and stayed there for the duration. Reading a book and from time to time just gazing with immense contentment over the vast, flat expanse of water – I was at sea after all. Though I thought of the Atlantic surf that crashes in against the rocks from Cape Point to Agulhas or the Indian Ocean swells and breakers that send up towers of spray on the shore below Duncannie near Port Shepstone, I soon came to terms with what I had - a boat in a sea mist, a serene expanse of sea and a fresh breeze – they have their attractions. Den Bosch in Holland What the hell was I doing in s’Hertogenbosch? Had I even ever heard of the place before my friend gave me directions to it? I spent an evening there and left the following morning but I wish I had known – I wish I had known how beautiful a little town it is and I wish I had read a little of its history. I have a friend who lives there and so I had built a stopover in the Netherlands into my itinerary. But the question of where in the Netherlands only came up when we began to make arrangements to meet. My friend told me I should take the train from Hoek to Rotterdam and then another to Utrecht and from there to Den Bosch (s’Hertogenbosch) – pronounced ‘Dem Bosh’, the little ‘s’ that clings mysteriously to the beginning of the name being a contraction of ‘des’ - the equivalent I suppose of Afrikaans ‘die’ or ‘the’. A hertog is a duke in both Afrikaans and Nederlands and so s’Hertogenbosch means ‘the Duke’s Bush’! So that is how I got to this lovely place in Holland, the attractions of which have only become fully apparent now that I have left it far behind and may never ever get a chance again to explore them. Only now do I know that the town has a long and chequered history as the principal town in the Duchy of Brabant. Perhaps the most fascinating fact about the place is that it is the home town of Hieronymous Bosch, commonly referred to as a painter of the Northern Renaissance but whose oeuvre seems to me to be thoroughly medieval. s’Hertogenbosch has a history of Catholicism and its cathedral of St John is said to be the most beautiful in all Holland. On a grimmer note, s’Hertogenbosch’s history is scarred by 5

the construction of a series of Nazi concentration camps in the area, named after the town the Herzogenbusch complex, which housed up to 30 000 inmates, 12 000 of whom were Jews. My friend and I had an Indonesian rijs tafel together – a bowl of rice with many, many spicy side dishes. After a good night’s rest and a pleasant walk through the town the next morning, I caught a train to Bremen. The pleasures of the Low Countries unfolded further as we travelled through the countryside, with its little villages, dikes, canals, rivers and green fields. Names full of history rolled by as the stations came and went – Zutphen, Nijmegen, Deventer, Arnhem. If only I had done better planning! I now discover that the train went right past Bad Bentheim in Germany, which we later drove out to from Lingen, a few kilometers up the road, to see a performance at the Freilichttheater community open air theatre. But I was bound for Bremen instead and so some days later had to come all the way back to Lingen before going back again to Bremen and then on to Hamburg and the Danish border. As a coda to my visit to Holland, subsequent correspondence with my friend in Den Bosch taught me something I hadn’t known. My friend wrote of the Maluku. I asked who they were and here was the answer – for those who might be interested in a little Dutch and Indonesian history: When Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, the Maluku people, who are known to be great warriors and fighters, were used for the Dutch-Indies army. So they were used against the Indonesian people. When the independence came, they were promised their own independent republic: RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan, Republic of the South Moluccas). However, the Dutch could not live up to their promises and because staying in Indonesia was no option for the people who fought against the Indonesians, they were sent to Holland with their families. The Dutch government said they would have a 3 month leave and then return to their own country, RMS. Instead, on arrival they were placed in former concentration camps used for the Jews and other barracks left from the 2nd WW. That is how they came in the Netherlands. Many of the elders never unpacked their suitcases, believing they would still get what they were promised. Later on, housing areas were built for them, because they have a strong community. Many problems arose of course; many of the fathers could not find proper jobs, became alcoholics or started using drugs to cope with the frustration of not being able to provide for their families and the second generation also with the guilt of not being able to help their parents or solve their pain and sadness. Frustrations often resulted in abuse at home, and criminal behaviour. Also a lot of hatred towards the Dutch because of their false promises. At the same time, they could not get back or did not want to go back because they would then have to be Indonesian citizens. It's a very sad story actually. The man who said: ‘You’ll be alright. It’s like riding a bike!’ was right – about bikes. Wo Werra sich und Fulda küssen Sie ihre Namen büssen müssen, Und hier entsteht durch diesen Kuss Deutsch bis zum Meer der Weser Fluss.

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(Where the rivers Werra and Fulda kiss With their names they have to pay for this And from this kiss there came to be The Weser flowing German to the sea.) It began with a wobble and ended up in a hedge. The country around Bremen is ideal cycling country. Flat, wet meadows, girt by dikes, ditches and causeways, and threaded by the numerous channels of the Wümme River, a tributary of the Weser. Narrow tarred roads lined with small trees. Hardly a motor car in sight. “You can travel the 150 kms all the way to Hamburg from here by bike through country like this,” explained my companion as we rode. I had mixed feelings when one day Till suggested we go for a bicycle ride. I loved the idea but there were two hitches – the weather, which I had hoped would be broad summer, full of sun and golden days, was fickle and churlish as sunshine preceded rain squalls or drizzle only to return again, flattering to deceive, in a totally unpredictable and untrustworthy succession of weather changes. When the idea of a bike ride came up, the clouds looked suspicious. Also I had not ridden a bike for about 25 years and I feared that not only would I lose my balance but my legs would turn to jelly. Anyway, off we went. I found I could no longer swing into the saddle as we did as schoolboys as my left leg, which is necessary for the exercise, was too weak. So rather ignominiously I had to sit on the saddle and push off! O, how the golden boys have tarnished! The long and the short of it was that after a few wobbles, I managed to steer a relatively straight path and kept gathering strength the further we went. Then the inevitable happened and the heavens opened. Till took cover in a ditch. I wanted to warn him not to as I saw what seemed to be a lady relieving herself in it. It turned out to be OK as it was just another man also taking cover from the rain in the ditch! I thought to myself that this was one of the many things I did not know about the Germans – when out cycling and it rains, they take cover in ditches! We rode 22 kms and I hardly felt a thing – mirabile dictu. All went famously and I both enjoyed myself greatly – even thought of buying a bike when I got back home – and acquitted myself honourably - until right at the very end. I was in the lead, foolishly of course as I did not know the way, and, through the corner of my eye, I saw Till take a sharp left. In my panic I think, I tried to both stop and turn at the same time and predictably ended up – not in a ditch – but in a hedge, bicycle and all. However I had had a taste of cycling and I envy those of you who I know go on wonderful cycling adventures. I have a suggestion for you. Go to Frisia, if you have not already – see coming up next. An unexpected delight between trains As I told you before, I had not bothered to check how Lingen related to Bremen and so my journey from Bremen to Lingen took me all the way back, almost to Rheine, through which I had passed on my way from s’Hertogenbosch some days before. To get to Lingen from Bremen I had to change trains in a town

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called Leer, which I was informed is in the German province of Ostfriesland (East Friesland). Basically Leer lies in the German part of ancient Frisia. As I had about forty minutes at Leer before my connection to Lingen, I decided to stroll into the town. I was immediately enchanted. With many pedestrian precincts and nestling in the embrace of the Leda where it flows into the Ems, Leer is a small port with many surrounding waterways. It is well worth visiting. It is the starting point for numerous wonderful cycling adventures - for the province, with its many waterways, lakes and flat stretches, is ideal for that. As lovely as was Leer, what seized my attention and had my imagination leaping, was that I was in Frisia. Frisia proper, of course, even today, stretches out of Germany into the Netherlands. We read that the very heartland of that country, the historical County of Holland itself, was originally Frisian. Why was it that the very name Frisia thrilled me so. I knew very little about. But I somehow suspected that the Frisians must have been very closely related or historically mixed up with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes that drove out the Celts and colonized England. Surely the Frisians too must have crossed the duck pond I had crossed a week before, along with the others and settled somewhere in England. So when I got home I did a bit of research and my hunch proved to be true. I have never come across a history book that mentions the fact that, along with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, there came to Britain the Frisians. But they did – and they settled in Kent in South-East England. The historian I looked up lamented that Frisia’s incorporation into the Carolingian Empire of the Franks and later into the Holy Roman Empire saw the final end of its independence and with it its language, religion and culture. The ancient priests and bards (skalds) were proscribed, the Frisian religion replaced with Christianity and their language with Low German – shades, it would seem of Africa or nearly anywhere where a people is conquered and colonized – with the interesting exception of Mughal India. However, obviously something of the Frisians’ language survived for, in the Friesland province of the Netherlands, Frisian is an official language along with Dutch. As you can imagine, the Frisians had a long and troubled history, full of victories and catastrophic defeats, conquests and struggles for independence, not only political but also religious, for the Frisians seem to have been resolute pagans, who fought against their conversion to Christianity for many centuries. Then there was the ongoing war with the sea, which once resulted in the abandonment of a large part of Frisian territory for nearly 200 years as the sea level rose and made it uninhabitable. Standing out in all this was the great Frisian Hero King, Redbad, who in the 600s, we are told, defended ‘Frisian freedom against the invading Frankish armies and against the Church of Rome.’ Apparently he was ‘a devout heathen’, who managed to send the Franks packing, destroy their new church at Utrecht and banish Christianity from the Frisian empire he established. Strangely, the Franks, who conquered France after the collapse of the Roman Empire and then subsequently the Frisians themselves, were apparently originally a fusion of Frisians and another closely related people, the Chaukians. When a young lady at Bad Bentheim, near the border with Holland and in Ost-Friesland, served us beers, her hair flaxen, her eyes blue and her cheekbones wide, I could have sworn she was a direct descendant of those ancient Frisians that had inhabited the region for thousands of years. 8

‘Freilichttheater’ – a village of Thespians The first person to greet us was a young boy. It was he who showed us the entrance to the car park. The next was an old man, who saw that we were safely parked. From there, the whole process of our ‘going to the theatre’ was attended by men, women and children of all ages. And when the play started to unfold on stage, the same human cross-section was revealed - adults, children and even babies in arms and prams! This was the village of Bad Bentheim presenting its summer play, The Jungle Book, in its outdoor theatre, the Freilichttheater. And this is where I was taken the afternoon I arrived in Lingen. I was certainly in good company because, as president of the German amateur theatre association (BDAV), my companion was a greatly honoured guest. The man who issued him tickets exclaimed: “Ah, now I know what a president looks like!’ The outdoor theatre is quiet spectacular, set as it is in a bowl between high rocky cliffs. The action takes place all over the place, on the top of a cliff, half-way down on a small platform or a winding set of rough-hewn steps or in the bush to either side. I was reminded of another outdoor theatre, quite different but in its way just as spectacular, near Tampere in Finland, if I recall correctly. What was so singular about that theatre in Finland was the fact that the seating itself rotated and so it was possible to move the audience from scene to scene as the locations changed – an innovative rejoinder to the revolving stage! The quality of the performance was not the point – this was village theatre. What mattered was that it was what we often rather glibly call ‘community theatre’ but was so in the true sense – where the whole community is involved, works towards its success and takes pride and identity from its achievement – rather like the Ngugi’s description of the Kamiriithu creation and staging of the play, Ngaahika ndeenda (I’ll Marry When I Want), that mobilised and transformed this entire community in Limuru, Kenya. And afterwards we joined some of the cast for a few beers – and their hospitality was exactly what one would expect from the people of a village with such a fine and proud tradition of togetherness and cooperation. A slither to the fiord “I’m going for a swim in the fiord first thing tomorrow morning. Are you coming?” said my friend, Kristian to me before we went off to sleep. “Sure”, I said. Well, ‘first thing’ turned out to be not quite what I understand by first thing as Scandinavians and Northern Europeans in general would appear to start their day rather later than we do ours – especially when they are on their summer holiday. Anyone who has anything to do with Scandinavians, will know that expecting anything to be done during their rather short summer could lead to a lot of disappointment. The sun was well and truly up by the time we prepared to leave the house for our ‘early morning’ swim. As we left, I was asked whether I had any suitable sandals or shoes. Travelling light as I

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was, I only had a pair of black Reeboks – I found out by the way from my friends in Germany that ‘rheebok’ is German for ‘hart’ (male buck). “Well, actually, the way down to the fiord is a bit muddy” – are the Danes also given to this very English habit of understatement? “The water comes out of the bank in places like a spring or fountain. You’ll need sandals or gumboots.” Kristian fished out a pair of his gumboots but, although they appeared to be enormous, I couldn’t even begin to put a foot in them. “I’ll just have to go barefoot,” I said. Now, barefoot is what I used to go many, many years ago when I was a boy growing up in South Africa. Probably the trip down to the fiord in those days would have been a doddle. But now I have feet that never leave the house – bare, that is. Besides, I am tall, I have wonky legs and my balance is very poor – always has been. I remember when I was a student at Oxford and went skiing in the Italian dolomites, largely to have an opportunity to speak Italian. I lost all faith in my ability to stand upright! And as it happens, the Italian dolomites or Alto Adige really belong to Austria and everyone there speaks German – a fact which led to the bizarre situation where the ski coach explained everything in German and then again in Italian for my benefit. When we got to the bank I found it to be high and the fiord quite a long way down below. The suggestion that the descent might be a little muddy was the understatement of the tour. Not only was it muddy, extremely muddy, and water was literally spouting from the ground at every turn as if the whole bank was a vast field of springs at a steep angle but it was littered with sharp stones and twigs. The only relief was where a rope had been strung from a tree down a particularly steep and totally nonnegotiable slope of very slippery mud. At least, by clinging on to the rope one could safely go down and up this stretch. Kristian watched me with alarm as, with me telling him that my balance is not so very good, he observed me pick my way down inch by inch, often on all fours and sometimes on my bottom until finally I got down to the shore. But there my travails were not over. True, there was the fiord before me, in all its beauty, the Åbenrå (old spelling Aabenraa) Fiord, the last fiord in Scandinavia as the coast meanders down to Germany. The next one, the Flensborg Fiord, once Denmark, is now Germany – though I am led to understand that the mayor is a Dane. Also, apparently when there was a revision of Danish spelling and the double ‘a’ (pronounced ‘oh’) was replaced by ‘å’, there was an outcry. “You can’t do that to us,’ raved the inhabitants of Aabenraa. “We will lose our position at the beginning of the alphabet!’ Between me and the rocks on which Kristian was standing, busy stripping down for his swim, was a minor minefield of large pebbles. What had happened to the feet that had skipped so gaily over the rocks and clambered from rock pool to rock pool all those years ago, even on one occasion indulging in the dastardly occupation of shooting crabs among the rocks with my new pellet gun? These pebbles were both too hard for my soles and far too uneven for me to walk on – or even stand. I decided I would not follow across this minefield but take a short cut to the shallow water to the left. I reckoned whatever I might find in the water was going to be a lot better than what I was treading on dry land.

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Well, painstakingly, I made my way in that direction, stripping off when I got to the edge of the pebbles. So there we were, two naked, white, bodies, looking rather like roosters with their feathers plucked, standing in the bitter breeze of a botched up Danish summer, about to enter the only slightly warmer waters of the Åbenrå Fiord. Normally, on our sandy beaches, when I suspect the water will be a little cold or just to show off, I do – still do to this day – a running, racing macho dive into a few inches of water that I learnt when I was a beachcombing teenager with a comb stuck into my cozzie on Durban South Beach. Though it is possible I might never do that again - as the last time I did it, I almost broke my wrists, which of course I did not allow any of the imagined spectators a chance to see. No hope of that now. Inching into the water, I made my way slowly to the point where it was actually possible to submerge oneself and did a belly flop. At least I was in. So was Kristian. The water was cold but not that cold – not like that day off a beach in Donegal when in the middle of winter on a drama tour of Ireland, I undertook to dive into the icy waters of the Atlantic for a fiver. On that occasion I was like Felix the cat or Jerry’s Tom, who, already in the air, sees the boiling water, or tar, or some such torturous substance he is about to plunge into, and begins trying to get out before he gets in. We stayed in the water for some minutes, splashing around and then began the slow journey back to the rocks in my friend’s case and the pebbles in mine. The bitter wind was now exhilarating. My whole body was ruddy and throbbed with sensation. I felt deliciously warm. I felt I never needed clothes again. Only as I began to dress, did the cold begin to come back. Kristian, the Galahad, having observed my excruciating descent, gave me his sandals and that made a great difference. Anyway, as I said to him, going up is always much easier than coming down. Of ancient towns and rare beauty Ribe I know. The oldest town in Scandinavia, says Thomas, who lives there. Founded in the 700s. Lovely old town. They are digging up around the old cathedral and going to pave it like a Piazza - like St Mark’s in Venice, I thought. Good talks about theatre with Helle and exciting plans. A Cohiba2 with Thomas on a doubtful day of Danish weather. The sun lasted long enough for us almost to finish our cigars and went just in time for Thomas to go in and watch the Tour de France. An old Viking centre on the Ribe River close to where it flows into the sea. Now it boasts a Viking Museum. Ate scrumptious fish at a restaurant in a picturesque old building next to a quay on the river. Thomas drove me to the coast, the great dike and the land reclaimed beyond it, over on a causeway to the island of Rømø, and out to the far shore – long stretches of flat white beach but your feet told you that at high tide this beach would be under water. A bit windy for comfort though all the German tourists didn’t seem to mind. People were swimming. Had a bad back at that stage but had I brought a swimming costume, I am sure I would have gone in. Paddled and the water was not so cold – lovely. Ribe I know. Hitchin I thought I did but obviously I completely underestimated it. Perhaps it was the name – Hitchin. Hitchin, some dreary town like Royston along the railway line to Cambridge. Not a bit of

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The best of Cuban cigars

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it. While I was staying with Munashe and family in Hitchin I had occasion to walk into and around town a few times and I was astonished. Every turn revealed fresh beauties – for anyone who looked. It is a lovely town. Old and very well conserved. Tudor buildings all over the place, whole streets. Georgian. A market square in the centre. The town retains its old medieval plan. It has resisted the influx of malls, shopping centres, parkades and other large commercial developments. Even the townspeople seem to sort of know each or have the shared camaraderie of the village. Back home Being back home is another highlight of any journey. It has one advantage over all the other highlights. Those highlights are over. Back home isn’t.

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