Zambia World Wide

And so it came to pass, that the giant belly of the species Aluminia BUA disgorged its human contents at Lusaka airport on May 19th 1965 and lo; what a blessed relief it was to all involved. We young, would-be, post-colonialists, fresh from Harold Wilson's white-hot technological Britain (what happened to that, I wonder?) wandered across the flaking tarmac as bewildered and excited as any toddler experiencing a first visit to Santa's Grotto.

So many unfamiliar smells and noises assailed our senses, as we stepped back into the plain architecture and infrastructure of the 30's and 40's that surrounded us. But exotic? By Golly it was. Not Renfrew aerodrome, that's for sure. Plus, so many black people! It sounds slightly racist, and definitely patronising, even to record it, but dark skins certainly didn't abound in the swirling fogs of early 60's Glasgow and, observing them crowding the spectator area of the rear apron, they definitely symbolised a complete break from my Caledonian norm.

Still sensitive to making the comment, I should add balance by noting that my home town completely and contentedly integrated a substantial colony of Asian descendants of the Lascar seamen, who had made Glasgow their refuge in the late19th century. 'Wid ye waaant yer Biryani noo or huv a wee Tennent's first, Jim?' colloquially addressed by a Glaswegian Bengali in a festive turban and salwar kameez, was a totally familiar Indian dialect for me, so completely had our neighbours from the sub-continent commandeered the restaurant sector and our curry-loving hearts (or what was left of the Scotsman's cardiac region, after the legions of Italian chippies and cappuccino cafes had done their fine work)

Not so with the boatloads of immigrants from the West Indies, who were mopping up unwanted (by UK natives) service jobs in the south of Britain. They were too damn smart to suffer the slings of precipitation and wounding arrows of hail that so hallmarked the typical Scottish summer, consequently staying south of Yorkshire. As a result, and even after a year in cosmopolitan London, my sudden exposure to African ebony was a visual epiphany. Something instantly told me that I was going to enjoy my sojourn in this vibrant, exuberant, sun-tanned, un-Scottish land. And so it came to pass, as my dreary time in London's East End started to diminish to the level of a shabby memory.

Of course, I had just emerged from the gloom of the VC10, still hunched up, like Gollum, from so many tortured hours spent crammed into the thinly upholstered steerage seats at the rear of the plane. Being thrown onto Omaha beach from a landing craft on D-Day, would have been preferable to any more time spent in that metal Hell. The virtuous missionary from my previous tale had abandoned me (and my too easily thwarted libido) at Ndola and scurried off to do good works in Irish, somewhere desolate and un-Christian - probably Ndola town centre, come to think of it and having been there.

The extra space she freed up did little, given the short interval of the flight to Lusaka, to deliver my painfully distorted musculature from the crippling effect of the previous 10 hours incarceration. So my joy at finally arriving was influenced substantially by the thrill of release from the clutches of British United Airways and I tottered down the wobbly metal stairs with a song in my heart and a probably ruptured disc in my back. The adventure had started.

The old Lusaka airport must have been built following an architectural blueprint for airports supplied to colonial authorities by Tri-Ang. It looked exactly liked the ones in Ndola and Entebbe, smelled the same and had the same air of weary bustle about it. The officials were snooty, the waiting crowds impatient to hug loved ones, the luggage interminably delayed and, once delivered, there was inadequate space to display it. I tried to influence the speed of process by claiming professional courtesy for an incoming future colleague, which served only to have me sent to the end of the queue - twice, but it did give me a chance to study the various facilities and procedures that I might soon be operating. There didn't seem to be any.

I discovered later that a high percentage of the Federation officers, unsettled by the prospect of serving under African management, had taken their pensions, gratuities and chattels southwards at a substantial lick, leaving a bureaucratic hiatus which people like me had been speedily recruited to fill. Add to that shortages of basic essentials, like rubber stamps, uniforms and correct documentation, plus a discordant element of on-the-job training to satisfy Zambianisation requirements and the reasons for the very long line of the weary and increasingly disgruntled became apparent. Crippled and dehydrated, still over-dressed for central Africa and not a little concerned that my entire contract would be spent in the line for immigration at Lusaka airport, my excitement started to diminish a tad.

Then a miracle happened. A vision of near military smartness, not a centimetre less immaculately attired than the gunnery sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, but several years older, marched crisply up the queue and announced my name. Actually, that's not true. First he sneered, second he positioned his eyes heavenwards, the better to impress the simpering female Zambia Airways onlookers and then he bellowed my name. I thought that the Collector of Customs had come to collect me personally and immediately went into servile mode, snapping my aching extremities into some form of stiffness -well, not all of them - and began obediently trotting along behind him, like a wee, well-behaved West Highland terrier, if such an example of that strutting breed could ever exist.

He certainly appeared to have authority, because, in no time at all, we emerged, blinking against unaccustomed sunshine, into the automobile maelstrom that was the front of old Lusaka Airport on VC10 day: he striding purposefully towards the official vehicle area and I, hurrying along behind, hauling the giant case that my mother had overfilled with garments designed to protect against all known Arctic diseases.

Still, I had entered the country with no scrutiny of paperwork, no stamp on passport and no examination of luggage. It was a shockingly impressive example of short-circuitry of interfering officialdom and, duly, I was disturbingly impressed. The scales only started to fall from my eyes, when I saw his mode of transport: a scruffy Morris 1000 traveller with GRZ plates and more dents than an Essex stock car. Even in penurious Britain, we customs officers had chunky Land-Rovers. Blimey, even my Dad, who would have had trouble qualifying to drive Miss Daisy, had an Austin Cambridge; but it looked like my future battles against Central African diamond smugglers or tobacco desperados would be supported by the same type of transport that maiden ladies drove to Evensong in Tunbridge Wells.

I didn't have long to ponder on car marque quality, however, as my senior saviour immediately turned to me and said that'll cost you eight rounds of Castle Pilsner and four whisky chasers for the Immigration and Customs Officers, young man. And you owe me a pound for the man who's been watching the car.*

I had met Bryson: self-appointed eminence grise, part- time official greeter/chauffeur, part-time (junior) customs official and full-time panhandling shyster. An hour in the country and I was down several quid for drinks for people I didn't know.

But at least I was in. Things would be more normal from now on, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they??

*(I should have questioned as to why anyone could be so desperate for entertainment that they would want to spend any time at all observing a sort of skip with wheels, even for modest remuneration, but I never thought of that, until writing this recollection some 45 years afterwards. Slow uptake runs in my family)

COPYRIGHT: GERRY HODES 2011

Episode #3: The Scots Lad Journeys Southwards