Zambia World Wide

Both of these devices hurt cruelly, but stung nothing like as much as the withering putdowns that the odd deviation from instruction attracted. Asked once to give a reason why a train from Glasgow Central might have been delayed on its journey to Saltcoats, I offered the view that a gang of mail thieves might have boarded at the departure point, worked their way along the carriages en route and persuaded the driver and fireman to exit the locomotive at a suitable, rural halt, whereupon the thieves would relieve the Royal Mail staff of their bags and make their getaway. I can yet see him looking down on me as he snarlingly proffered the view that my almost immediate future involved early incarceration in one of Glasgow's many prisons, followed surely by a short trip to the room with the noose. Looking elsewhere for an alternative, he accepted 'Sir, the train jumped the tracks' as a superior explanation from a smirking sycophant named Russell and rewarded my protest at the dullness of it with yet another cracking blow to my well-calloused skull, using the pointy stick he habitually carried. Now I do not recall any Cockney gangsters in my class at the time, yet, not 7 years later, that's exactly the crime that Mr. Biggs and Co visited on a certain Glasgow to London mail train. More than mere coincidence, say I.

It wasn't just within the classroom that Finlay instilled rigidity in our thinking. The sports field enabled him to bring the phrase 'suffer unto little children' to life, as he instilled a lifelong hatred of rugby into our crushed wee bodies, by tackling three or four of us simultaneously, gathering us up in his giant, Neanderthal arms and hurling us into the deepest mud pit he could find, before stamping all over our recumbent corpses, as part of the master plan to create 'real men'. Cricket, ditto: no love of that game, which I since have seen played with grace and style, could possibly be engendered by standing nervously at the crease holding an oversized bat, whilst Finlay hurled one of his nose-splitting googlies from the bowling end, then laughing cynically as the small boy recipient limped off with a bloodied face and more than the odd tear. I guess he was just a big, latent poof, exorcising his own suppressed proclivities and being paid for it too. I hated him, I still do and, talking to other former pupils from his era, I'm not alone. At least I outlived the bastard, benefited greatly later on from more enlightened educators and still retained an imagination, if not a complete sense of proportion.

I win.

Notwithstanding that inelegant outburst, let's attempt a return to Central Africa and this Scots Lad's continuing journey to the South, although Finlay and his wicked attempts to stifle any early signs of emerging personal style usually come back to me on train trips.

Entrained I certainly was and on the early train to Livingstone from Lusaka at that. Not that there was a late train, except for when this one wasn't on time, which was often (but much MUCH worse now, I believe) because there were only three services a week and they all set off at an ungodly hour in the am. Nevertheless, it was a relief to bid goodbye to that brusque robber, Bryson and seek out my compartment within the cream and wine sleeper carriages, all marked RR. My only recognition of these initials being associated with superior motor cars, I began to think that, perhaps, Cecil Rhodes had persuaded the august vehicle provider to the nobility to invest in rolling stock for his eponymous country's railway. Not so. The RR stood, of course, for Rhodesia Railways although their comfort levels were closer to that of a Robin Reliant, than any Roller I've experienced. Of course, even when not being attacked by Ronnie Biggs, BR carriages weren't exactly famed for luxury, even at the highest levels, so my working class expectations weren't offended by the thought of spending the next 24 hours aboard this African equivalent of 2^nd class, especially as I was still in adventure mode. But my priority was that I needed to eat….and fast.