Made the fatal mistake of lifting the lid from a box of old photographs; three hours later... Anyway, I’ll scan a couple that were taken at Victoria Falls way back in the late fifties – will stick them in with my next blog.
Everything seemed simpler then, a world in black and white rather than one of contrived colours and air-brushed fakeries. Even the monkeys were better behaved. I swear the ape in one of my next week’s pictures said “please” – seconds before he snatched the packet and legged it back to his mates for his scam of the year award.
And yet another excerpt!
... On we trundled, four cars filled with crazy people, firmly joined at the hip by that same, die-hard British need to see beyond the next horizon. Directly behind ours, Ron and Hilda proudly showed off the sturdy, tank-like qualities of their trusty shooting brake. Ploughing through sand and pot-holes with happy disregard they would point and grin in a disparaging way at our tiny, though valiant Morris Minor. Sometimes my dad would hang his arm out of the window, showing Ron and Hilda two of his fingers whenever they came too close.
‘The African sign for mind-my-car,’ my dad said. As usual, I believed him and went back to looking out the window for Aunt Ann’s threatened waterfall. An hour later, Uncle Vince pulled everyone into the roadside and for the benefit of us fledgling pioneers, pointed out a wispy line of cloud struggling up from the jungle.
‘Victoria Falls,’ he announced proudly, then glowered at my dad for sniggering.
‘More steam from our kitchen sink,’ dad told him. I laughed as well and got loomed over by Aunt Ann. So, duly chastised and tempered by our own ignorance we assembled once more as the package tour from hell. Reluctantly, under a cloud of inter-family hostilities, we wobbled on, into a wild and winsome Zambezi Valley. Twenty minutes later, as a subdued congregation we stood and stared; every ounce of cynicism dispelled by what was definitely, one of the most captivating seven wonders of our world...
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