Look out Madeira!

‘The Kindle has landed! Now, lions lie down with lambs, lovers, lycanthropes, swashbuckling pirates and bloodsucking vampires, all of them brought to life through the simple touch of a button.

The young are reading again. Kindles, iPads, phones or Sonys, matters not they’re all ‘cool’ – the ‘whys and wherefores’ don’t come into it – kids are crunching words as well as graphics and that’s gotta-be-good. Yes, I too love the feel of a quality book and have hundreds of them stacked behind me at the moment – within reach – most of them about Africa; guess I’m a little tunnel-visioned, but overall, the eReader, in my opinion is set for an all time positive jump up the charts. Digital downloads have already leapfrogged, Amazon’s paperback sales. Die-hard naysayers shake their heads at this so called, flash-in-the-pan stuff – but youngsters with nimble fingers and a bold eye for the eco-friendly are snapping up eReaders by the lorry load! For the visually challenged and oldies like me – words can be zoomed and tuned to suit. Big as letters on Scania number plates if that’s what’s needed. Good reads are being downloaded faster than I pick up five pound notes from the pavement. This year will see the ‘net-waves’ red hot and rocking with great reads – hopefully my ‘Sons of Africa’ will be amongst them when I upload in April...

So get on with reading my taster storyline; the next shovelling of ‘An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa’... y’know you love it.

Tired now; going to bed. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Jeff

... The ship’s Captain thought it a good idea for his passengers to stay for a full day in Madeira. Fathers, kids and handbag toting mothers swept inland; well-endowed with English bon hommes and warm sunshine we flocked as mindless sheep, ready for the slaughter. Predatory shopkeepers flung open their doors and within that first two hours, Brits flinched of their money and carrying more rubbish than a rag-man’s hand cart trundled back towards the docks; most of them none the wiser – counterfeit watches lashed to their wrists and genuine ‘Made in China’ Toledo steel paperknives stowed as presents, or maybe as trade goods for The Dark Continent.

Medallioned men in jeans and open-necked shirts waited in ambush around every corner – shoe-shine boys with their boxes and brushes; ‘Two-bob I cleanayourshoes – very cheap very quick me do a good job, yes?’ So the men let them and their wives sat on handy benches and watched. The shoe-shine men rattled in Portuguese and smiled politely at the women. ‘You haveathebeautifultits’ was what they were really saying, but the women just smiled back and nodded benignly – clueless. ‘Such friendly people,’ one woman said.

At last, back on board and locked away asylum-like for our own safety the Captain steered our ship southwards, down towards the equator. Every day the promised sun came up again, big and warm and the ice cream cones became more mountainous. My arms and legs and the red ring around my neck were going brown; I had moved from ‘raw pom’ to the coveted status of one quarter colonial – the browner I got, the more colonial I became and instead of looking back through the ship’s wake for one last glimpse of Blighty, my eyes searched more for southern horizons. Somewhere over that misty edge of the Atlantic Ocean lay adventure – Africa. I remember the realization as though it were yesterday. I remember shivering with excitement. I was changing. Sandals and socks were done away with – knee-length flannel shorts were swapped for those more suited to the tropics; shorts that were properly short and let your legs gorge on sunlight and salt air. Barefooted and semi-brown I watched Madeira waddle away in the haze. Three days later we hit the Equator.

‘Flying fish!’ mother shouted and flung out her hand to starboard. Not until I was thirteen did I believe the bit about ‘squirting water out of their bums’ for them to get airborne – the fish, not my parents. Anyway, the weather got hotter and every kid on board got lumbered with dab-on pink stuff for prickly-heat. We all stared at the ocean; watching for the Equator. Today we ‘cross the line’ – it said so on the ship’s notice board. Must have looked away ‘cause I missed it...