Trafford Publishing: Rollicking Recollections

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Rollicking Recollections

by Leonard J. Gill

157 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0018; ISBN 1-55395-655-9; US$17.50, C$19.95, EUR14.50, £10.00

The rip-roaring teenage memoirs of an English Boy in Kenya.

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About the Book      About the Author      Sample Excerpts      Catalogue Info

About the Book

More humorous snapshots of a boy growing up in Kenya, and the people he meets on his way to adulthood form a joyous and often engrossing celebration of life in general.
"The book covers the emergence of the young adult years of my life from 1940, the attitudes I adopted, and events I and my family experienced, together with tales about some of the famous and infamous characters we met. My own adventures in which I faced serious injury and even death didn't make me more circumspect.
I walked through life confident in my immortality, like a cat with twenty-nine lives, and with a sense of fun and growing responsibility.
Hesitant steps toward youthful romance were met with mild disappointment and an arrogant belief that girls were of little value beyond being useful targets for pranks."
- Len Gill

About the Author

Born in Kenya, East Africa, of English parents in December 1930, Len lived there until 1989. During his childhood, among his family and African servants, he ignored the dismay he caused them.
He enjoyed life. Even a period at boarding school offered Len scope for devilment. His absence at school relieved those at at home of the complications that always seemed to attend his presence. His school teachers and friends had to bear the burden.
By the development of youthful arrogance, and in blissful ignorance of the vexations he caused, he was unaware ot the necessity to balance humor with seriousness.
African's dubbed him with the nickname Mpenda raha (he who enjoys a good time). Len insists that a shot-glass of humor helps the worries go down.
The inspiration in his life, Kaye, recognised Len's flair for storytelling, and insisted that, having reached three score years and ten, he get down to writing his momoirs.
Len now lives in Glenwood Springs, Colorado with his wife Kaye and Shih-tzu, Bandit.

Sample Excerpts

Nothing Like a Dame
      Anita Crosse-Upcott was a truly beautiful girl. She was slender, had long, well groomed raven hair, and delicately sculptured features. Maybe her nose was just a little pointed, but this defect only highlighted the perfection and beauty of her other features. She also had a sparkling personality which shone through her twinkling brown eyes.
      She had a happy, humorous disposition and an elegant, cultivated charm. Or so it seemed to a certain awkward, would-be suitor.
      Anita accompanied us on a holiday to Mombasa one year. She and Elizabeth were much involved in popular music. Mr. Sinatra was a favorite, and they spent most of each day in their hotel chalet playing Sinatra records on a wind-up record player. I was rather taken with the lovely Anita, though she was two years my senior, and was almost totally ignorant of my existence, Mr. Sinatra being the hot marvel of the moment.
      I decided the time had come to intrude on that relationship, and went to their chalet. There were two steps up into the room where Elizabeth and Anita were sitting on their beds with the gramophone on a low table between them. I attempted a macho sort of entrance, and did a standing jump onto the first step, followed by another into the room. The doorway was low and my head hit the lintel with a solid thud. I fell between the beds at the feet of the girls, stunned.
      "Why not take all of me?" sang Mr Sinatra
      "Oh, Leonard," cried my ever-loving, exasperated sister, "You'll upset the record player!"
      Taking into consideration that I was stunned, and had fallen heavily onto a cement floor, this reaction from Elizabeth might be termed inconsiderate and unthinking. But worse: Anita was giggling.
      "Oh, you fool!" she gasped between giggles.
      I slowly got to my feet and staggered to my room, stars circling my pounding head. I hadn't attracted Anita's attention in quite the way I had intended. My budding interest in girls suffered a relapse.
      There is nothing like a dame.
The Love Affair
      All the passengers shared the captain's table, and the little party was convivial, despite the danger of a possible U-boat attack. One evening my aunt Norah got into conversation with the middle-aged couple seated to her left.
      "Are you going back to India?" asked the pompous husband, "Or are you going to India for the first time? We, that is my dear wife, Hermione, and I are old India hands." He turned to his wife. "Aren't we, my dear?"
      "Oh, yes," agreed Hermione. "Dicky and I have been out in India for years," she added fruitily.
      "I'm going there for the first time," answered Norah shyly.
      "Oh, jolly good!" Dicky seemed unable to say anything below a shout.
      "Where are you actually going?" he asked. Norah gave the name of the town she was aiming to get to just as quickly as she could.
      "Oh, jolly good!" bellowed Dicky. "That's where we live."
      "It's an army cantonment," explained Hermione. "Nothing else. Just an army cantonment."
      "Yes. What are you going there for?" asked Dicky. "It's just an army cantonment," he added.
      "I'm going to get married," said Norah coyly.
      "Married," shouted Dicky. "Jolly good! Hear that Hermione? She's going to get married."
      "Oh!" exclaimed Hermione excitedly. "To whom?"
      "We know most of the chaps there," roared Dicky. "Who's the lucky blighter?"
      "Yes. You must tell us," added Hermione.
      "Captain Lawlers," said Norah.
      "Oh!" said Dicky and Hermione together quietly. Dicky cleared his throat.
      "What d'ya think of the trip so far?" asked Dicky of nobody in particular. "Bloody boat is too damned slow, if you ask me. Wretched sub will get us if we don't speed up a bit. Bloody U-boats!"
      Norah was rather worried. Did Dicky and Hermione know something awful about Captain Lawlers? Over the following days she asked them, but they were evasive. Finally she got Hermione to one side on her own.
      "You must tell me what's wrong with my intended." she insisted.
      "You are such a lovely girl, and you really should know that Captain Lawlers has been married three times. All three wives have died in mysterious circumstances," said Hermione quietly.
      Norah didn't marry Captain Lawlers.
A Sad Teacher
      A totally inadequate teacher was Chafu (dirty) Johnson. Everything about him was dirty, from his clothing to his pasty white face. A small man, his clothes hung on him like a scarecrow. His oversized trousers were held up with a knotted tie and drooped to his shoes in folds. He reeked malodorously. He was a musician, and briefly our Choir Master. Standing on a stage, his feet precisely together, the toes of his shoes turned up, he conducted us by waving wildly with his arms. His choice of song was from Shakespeare:
      Under the greenwood tree
      Who loves to lie with me
      And turn his merry note
      Unto the sweet bird's throat.
      To expect a mob of teen-aged louts to be enthusiastic over such a sonnet was asking too much. We were excited by the first couplet, thinking that Shakespeare was introducing a passionate, possibly pornographic, love scene. We were disappointed when the next lines turned it into an innocuous, insipid tableau. Boorish boredom.
      Chafu had a four or five year-old son who helped the sanitary corps men to empty the buckets from the toilets of the lower members of the school staff - gardeners, grounds maintenance crews, cleaners and the like, who were housed on the school grounds, and had only primitive toilet facilities. The sanitary corps consisted of two men and an ox-drawn, two-wheeled cart carrying a steel tank into which the contents of the toilet buckets were slopped each day, for discharge into an underground cistern. It was a filthy job, and the fact that the Johnsons allowed their little boy to go round with the men, shocked us.
      The family lived in a ground floor apartment beneath one of the dormitories. The apartment opened out onto a small formal garden which led onto a side-road that passed the main school building. Chafu always parked his car on the far side of this road, directly opposite his apartment. He parked it as far off the road as possible by putting two wheels in a shallow open storm drain.
      His car was a small, ancient, poorly maintained, Austin sedan. It was well on the way to becoming a derelict, and luxuries like door catches had long given up the ghost to be replaced by cheap door bolts. Anticipating his car's early demise, Chafu never put more than a gallon of fuel in the tank, so that the petrol sloshed around the bottom.
      The lads in the dormitory above Chafu's apartment would, after he and his family had locked themselves away for the night, lower a cord to friends who had sneaked out of the dormitory to wait below. They attached the cord to the car door, and undid the door bolt. They then hurried back up to the dormitory, where the other end of the cord was tied to the dormitory's balcony railing. Any boy, who awoke during the night, went out onto the balcony and pulled the cord, thus opening the car door. Letting go of the cord allowed the car door to slam shut. Bang! Pull, let go. Bang! Pull, let go. Bang! And so on, until a light in Chafu's apartment was switched on, and the apartment door opened. Chafu's shadow, falling across the garden could be seen from above as he peered into the darkness. Of course, as soon as the light downstairs was switched on, the boy above discontinued pulling the cord. After a few minutes Chafu would go back to bed, and the light would be switched off. After a few minutes, the banging of the car door would start again. On would come the light downstairs. Chafu never got to the bottom of this phenomenon.
      Another little thing that was done to amuse Chafu, and distract him from his worldly worries, was the Coffee-Beans-in-the-Fuel-Tank Game. A handful of dry coffee beans in the always nearly-empty-tank, caused constant stoppages. Chafu played the organ every Sunday at a cathedral in town, some five miles from the school. To get to the cathedral was a down hill run almost all the way. Coming back was, of course, uphill all the way. Whenever Chafu put his foot hard down on the accelerator, petrol was drawn by the fuel pump from the tank to the carburetor. A coffee bean was sucked down to cover the exit from the gas tank to the pump, and would be kept there for as long as the motor demanded more fuel. The carburetor emptied, and fuel starvation caused the car to splutter to a stop. The coffee bean floated up, away from the exit from the gas tank. Chafu pressed the starter and, after a few moments, the carburetor filled again, the engine re-started, and the car would go another 400 yards before it again spluttered to a stop. The five mile journey from the cathedral back to school was done with about twenty stops. Chafu never got to the bottom of this problem either.
      Chafu didn't last long at the PoW, and none of the other staff would take up residence in the apartment that he and his family vacated, as it stank so. Even after innumerable complete scrubbings, it took nine months to get rid of the stench.
      The Morgan Holiday
      We explored the lumber-mill yard, and found a fifteen year old, derelict car parked in a clump of bushes. It obviously hadn't been used for years, and we decided to try to get it started. John said it belonged to his father, but couldn't remember when it had been abandoned. It would need a battery, petrol, and the tires needed to be inflated. No insurmountable problems according to John, who thought we might find a battery in the lumber-mill workshop and a tire pump in his Dad's car. So we decided to see if there was fuel in the tank. The gauge showed the tank to be empty, but perhaps the gauge was faulty. I took the petrol tank cap off, and peered into the tank. Darkness. I had a sniff. No smell. I took a box of matches from my pocket and lit one. Since I couldn't smell petrol, the chances were that the tank was completely empty. I held the burning match to the fuel tank filler mouth. Couldn't see any petrol. I lit another match, rocked the car and peered into the tank hoping that any fuel would slosh about, and the light from the match would reflect on its surface.
      Whooooosh!
      Yes, there were gas fumes in the tank. I lost my eyebrows and my eyelashes were singed. So was my forelock. Damn it! The old car was on fire. John and I slunk away through the bushes to watch the conflagration from a hundred yards away. It didn't take long for the old car and the bushes around it to burn away. Strangely, nobody seemed to notice the fire, until the tires began to burn, giving off black, odorous smoke. But by then there was little to save, and the bushes had more or less burnt out. The mill foreman went to have a look at the fire. He decided to let it take its course and returned to the mill.
      John suggested I wash my face, and grunted without comment when I asked him if he thought anyone would notice the absence of eyebrows, singed eyelashes and forelock. We decided on a story of a camp fire flaring up suddenly, but this failed to convince Mr Morgan, who suggested we keep away from any other old cars that we might find. We agreed to this suggestion.
Wild West?
      Friends of John Morgan on the next farm, two brothers, Roger and Robin, and a sister, Melissa, had a string of ponies, and we were invited to go over for a ride. I had never ridden a horse but, from watching others, it appeared easy enough. I struggled onto a mount amidst sniggers. I was advised to put my feet in the stirrups, and someone adjusted the leathers to the correct length. I had read a few Zane Grey and Louis Lamour books about the Wild West and horses, and I drove my heels into my mount with all the vigor of overconfidence born of ignorance. The wretched horse managed to get out from under me in a hurry, and I landed heavily on my back in the dust. Squeals of mirth, particularly from Melissa, increased my embarrassment, but I nonchalantly got to my feet, brushed myself off and started all over again. I suspected that the animal had been selected for its cussedness. I determined to master the mulish horse, and to insist I ride him on any future occasion. After a few hours I began to learn how to keep the horse under me and, after a few days, I was able to keep up with my pals as we rode over the farm, at full gallop on several occasions.
      I was unseated hurriedly and inelegantly on another occasion when my horse took fright at the scent of a lion. Roger had drawn our attention to the lion, which was four hundred yards away. It was lying peacefully in the sun. We couldn't see the rest of the pride, but supposed them to be under a clump of bushes near where the lion lay. The wind shifted, all the horses took fright, and mine managed his trick of getting out from under me in a hurry, again. My friends caught and settled him. Stiff from my fall, I had to walk a quarter of a mile to where they were waiting for me, snickering at my discomfiture, particularly the sister, Melissa. I looked back over my shoulder to assure myself that the lion wasn't grinning, and licking his chops in anticipation of a meal - me. He didn't seem to be at all interested, for which I was truly thankful.
      I remounted in scornful silence, and back in the saddle again, led the posse back to the farm house at full gallop. There I received a stern rebuke for galloping back to the stables. Horses must walk back home to allow them to cool off. Possibly there was more to horse riding than either Mr. Grey or Mr. Lamour wrote about in their books.
      I must have missed something I'd found boring compared with the descriptions of the tawny haired, svelte girls that inhabited the Wild West.

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