THE FIRST DAYS ARE THE HARDEST DAYS...

Monday night before the flight and it’s the usual cramming everything into pockets…

Haddy still hasn’t worked out the importance of pockets when you’re going to be overweight on the flight.
To whit :  ALWAYS wear the things with the most pockets as it’s quite amazing how much the weight comes down when you’re wearing the weight.
Yes, it can be uncomfortable hanging around the airport, but you can always cram the items into your piddly little five kilo maximum bag that you can take onto the ‘plane whilst you’re in flight, and then just carry the bag off at the other end whilst you wait for your luggage.
We’ve booked a two week stay for the car at one of Gatwick’s most outlying car parks, but at least I’ve been there before so there should be no trouble finding it.
Right… Are you ready, love ?   It’s two o’clock in the goddamn morning, so let’s go…
Apart from the fact that I’d been up since six the previous morning, it’s such an easy run down to Gatwick at that time.
There is literally nothing on great stretches of the journey apart from us, a few delivery vans, and the long distance truckers, so nobody is jostling for position and it actually makes the M25 a pleasure to drive down apart from the coned off areas…
Hand over the paperwork in the car park, get my ticket and wait for the coach to Gatwick South.

First things first…
Wait at the check-in to see if they’ll let us weigh upfront ?
Bollocks !
They’ve changed the system…
After a bit of re-packing we’re three kilo’s over and have to pay the full whack.
Shit ! Bollocks ! and Fuck it !
Buy a newspaper, sit and drink a black coffee to stay awake, find a chair and stuff some of the sarnies we’ve brought down with us, get up and go outside again for a last fag and then hit the departure lounge…
Strip off jackets, shoes, boots, belts and the whole rigmarole to get through the scanners…
Do it a second time because one penny had got stuck in my jeans pocket…
Put clothes back on again and collect the gear…
Which as soon as I hit the departure lounge I realise is short by one set of keys, my camera and my mobile phone…
Back through the ‘No Entry’ signs to ask where the staff have taken them ?
‘Oh, are these yours ?’
Yes, actually, and if you hadn’t moved the tray onto the sodding floor and had left it on the belt, I wouldn’t be missing them, would I ?
Buy brandy for us when we’re out there, and a three pack of giant Toblerone for the kids.
They’ve sold out of any reasonable tobacco, so I’ll wait and chance it when I get there.
Finally, the flight is called and we start the damn near three quarter mile trek to the farthest gates to board the ‘plane, where we finally collapse into our seats.
Can I sleep now, please ?
Typically, Haddy is now wide awake, while all I want to do is get some zzz’s.
Oh well, as soon as we’re up, maybe ?
Stuff an inhalitor in my mouth and lord it over the poor sods who have all forgotten to buy one.
As soon as we’re up I doze for about an hour before the cabin staff start their routines…
Coffee ?   Tea ?  Drinks ?   Duty free ? 
That wakes me up… And… There’s a deal on Golden Virginia tobacco.
Right… Two five packs for thirty eight quid.
That sorts out me, Lamin and Hadim and the guys over there who smoke.
God knows what the film is ?
It’s totally forgettable anyway, so Haddy sticks the radio on and I doze off again until dinner.
‘In flight’ chicken and veg’ as usual…
And now we’re over the Sahara desert…
Another cup of ‘in flight’ tea…
Ugh !
Last pee on board as we’re on our way down…
And we’re there.
Banjul airport, and it’s three o’clock… And it’s got to be about thirty five degrees out there ?
Coach to the terminal and let the fun begin…
The uniformed lass in the booth checks the passport and the card and asks why I’ve put down ‘visit family’ for the trip ?
‘Because I’m visiting my family’ I answer.
‘My wife is behind me, and we’re visiting the children…’
‘You are married to a Gambian woman ?’
‘Yep’
‘Where do you live ?’
‘Fagikunda, when I’m here…’
She smiles at that point and hands me the passport back, now it’s Haddy’s turn.
It may sound like it’s a problem getting in, but it isn’t really.
The reason it sounds like I’m getting the third degree is that there is no hotel listed on the immigration form, and since unlike parts of Europe, sleeping on the beach is frowned upon and you could get picked up for any number of offences from vagrancy up to drug smuggling or gun running, the immigration staff ask.
It’s no problem.
All you have to do is answer their questions.
If they don’t like the answers you give them, then you’ll soon know about it…
No ‘Tufa ?
Apparently his taxi was absolutely totalled by a relief driver, and so the poor guy is jobless again, but we’re picked up by someone Haddy knows, and driven straight to the compound.
Now the thing is… Haddy had told her daughter Fatou that we were travelling on the Friday and not the Tuesday because she did not want a house full of visitors when we arrived.
It’s a bit sly I know, but bearing in mind the jungle telegraph is a damn site quicker than a mobile ‘phone out there, it seemed a reasonable thing to do.
So as soon as we walked through the compound gate there is a very audible scream from Sainabou…
Surprise surprise !
Followed by hugs all round from Husainatou, Mariama, Jalika, Little Ida and Omar and Mum Ida, and then the noise began as everybody started talking at the same time…
Our missing twin, Hassanatou, is on a college course and is staying with the rest of her classmates at a hotel, and so we won’t be seeing her until Friday.
Then the kids all ran outside to tell everybody that Naneh Kombo was home...
So the following couple of hours were absolute chaos.
Unpack ?
Forget it.
Check the freezer for Julbrew ?
Good, they remembered to buy it.
Cheers… I’ll have a beer… Or maybe three ?
And just let them get on with it.
Finally, at about one-thirty the following morning, we collapse into bed.


One of the reasons that we’re here, apart from seeing the kids and the family, is to extricate Haddy from some of the organisations that she’s a member or secretary of.
Most of that involves money and about forty to fifty women of the village.
When you are a bank signatory of an organisation and you live in the U.K. then if the other signatory falls sick or dies or has any other problem involving them not getting to the bank, then problems tend to arise.
Sainabou has been looking after the accounts since Haddy moved, but now they need somebody else to take over Haddy’s position and therefore elections need to be held or organisations closed and the saved money shared back out between the members and Haddy has three of these to sort out.
You’d think that was easy wouldn’t you ?
I mean, put as simply as that then it should be, right ?
Would any Gambians reading this please stop laughing ?
I’m not Gambian, ok… I’m writing this from a European perspective so please do me a favour and cut the hilarity.
Talk about easier said than done.
If one person is prepared to make decisions and stick with them for the good of the group as Haddy did, then obviously Haddy is the person to do the job, which is why they all said she should do it in the first place.
Now, with Haddy retiring from her position, other problems are going to come into play.
Problems which we don’t seem to get too much of in Europe, but this is emphatically not Europe, this is Africa and specifically The Gambia and so you have to factor in the usual things like competence, availability and honesty and then you have to factor in things like jealosy and tribalism…
To tell you the truth, I can see this lot going seriously pear-shaped, but first things first…


I must have been tired because I missed Mosque-man…
Usually I wake with the early morning call to prayers, but not this time…
This time I slept straight through until I got a nudge and heard the sound of a most welcome cup of tea being placed on the bedside table and a voice I seem to recognise from somewhere coming through the fog and telling me breakfast is on the table.
Ok…
Gimme fifteen minutes and I’ll be there…
Possibly ?
Ah… Gambian breakfast.
Lettuce, tomato, sliced onion, cucumber, tinned sardines, tapalapa and mayonnaise.
That’ll do me, thanks very much.
Tapalapa ?
It’s a cross between a baguette and a finger roll.
The shape of a finger roll and the length and consistency of a baguette.
It’s the local bread and it’s baked fresh every day at the local bakers round the corner.
Ok…
Shower… In cold water, because the kids have run off all the hot before they went to school and college.
Ask Sainabou what we’re short of, provision wise, in the house ?
Get a taxi to the top of the road and then another to Westfield and pick up some money which we’ve sent via Western Union to our bank, and then hit the supermarkets, which thankfully, are together but on opposite sides of the road.
I’ve promised Sainabou that by the time we leave, she’ll be cooking some of the recipes I’ve brought with me.
Sainabou can cook and cook very well, but she wants to learn more about other types of food, not just Gambian or West African, so it’s a good time to stock up on some ingredients.
They’re going to cost a fortune compared to the U.K. but what the hell…
Herbs and spices for instance.
Just under a pound up to two pounds depending on the spice in the U.K.
In The Gambia it’s just under two pound fifty up to five pounds per same sized jar, and that’s if they sell it ?
Food wise, all the prices have gone through the roof over there.
The worldwide problem with the banks and the recession has finally hit them, and it is hurting them badly because it’s a petrol or diesel based economy.
Everything has to be trucked around the country.
The taxis, whose prices are regulated by law, are screaming at the government to let them be allowed an increase in fares because fuel has gone up so much.
So far the government has resisted because otherwise people will not be able to get to their place of work or school or college, whatever ?
But it will have to change soon and they’ll have to put up prices and everybody knows this…
They just want to put it off for as long as is possible ?
JEEEZUS !  How much ?
That was me at the supermarket checkout.
Christ mate, I just want this stuff, I wasn’t planning on buying your bloody shop !
Ouch !
That was a shock to the system, believe me.
We’ve spent probably in U.K. terms, an extra twenty to twenty five quid on the stuff that I’d normally buy when I’m over here.
The herbs and spices are up slightly, but the basics have gone through the roof.
I think I need to get home before my wallet suffers another seizure…
We unpack it all when we get back…
It doesn’t seem a lot when it’s all laid out on the table.
Hey Saina’… Tomorrow we cook.
Moroccan meatballs on cous-cous…
Sainabou is none the wiser… But she will be tomorrow night.
I just hope that we can keep the food within the family, as although I’m just a self-taught cook, when the word gets out that I’m doing the cooking we do seem to get an inordinate amount of visitors at food time…
Not just the blokes, who come over to take the piss out of a man doing the cooking, (It’s women’s work in The Gambia… Men just sit around on their arses and wait)
but the women and kids, too.
Everybody wants a plate of what Uncle Chris has cooked…
Which is why anybody taking the piss out of my cooking the meal won’t be invited to the next one.
This attitude might be a bit less friendly, but I’ll tell you what… Once the word gets round that the food was good, then it stops as suddenly as it starts.
The local vulture population doesn’t want to miss out…

As soon as we arrive back, Ousman appears.

Ousman looks after Haddy’s land compound plot at Killy on the Soma road.
I’ve only been there once on my first trip out here, but he looks after it, grows as much rice and vegetables as he can on the land, and then sells it, giving a proportion to Haddy.

The problem out there is lack of water as there are no pipes yet, and so it all has to be carried  by donkey cart from the nearest well.

Ousman is a good old boy, and we can talk vegetables without any problem.

He’s been trying to get some dwarf green beans to grow, but the local insect population discovered their taste before they were ready and stripped the lot.

That’s a shame because a kilo of dwarf green beans could get seventy five Dalasi a kilo from the local hotels and fifty Dalasi a kilo on the veg’ markets and at forty two Dalasi to the English pound, that’s a considerable amount if you have a reasonable harvest.

Oh well, keep trying.

If ever a country needed a figure to learn from, then I reckon Scotland’s Robert The Bruce would be perfect for The Gambia ?

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.

We will get those beans to grow.

Don’t know which year, but it WILL be done.

I’m told we are going to see one of the village elders and the village’s oldest resident this afternoon, who I’ve never actually met before.

He has been one of the elders for so long that most people cannot remember him not being one, nd is eighty nine years old which puts him a year behind my Father.

The fact I’ve not met him previously is quite surprising because he’s drum-maker Lamin’s Father.

A couple of years ago, he’d been knocked down by a car and seriously injured and  one of his hips had been put out.

Did it stop him getting about ?

Did it heck ?

It made him a bit slower and he now has to rely on his stick a bit more, much to the local kids discomfort if they should come within range of it, but stop him ?

No chance.

The other visit is going to be Ebrima’s Mother at her own compound.

She had already popped over to visit us last night when she had heard we had arrived, but respect says we go to her.

That I know I’m going to find difficult.

I don’t think of it as a duty, it’s something that I have to do, but I know in myself that it’s going to be a hard one.

It’s the first trip where the old pirate hasn’t come over and given me a hug, and said ‘Hey Chrees, you are welcome…’

So yeah… That’s going to be a hard one.

The noise level has gone up because Mariama and Jalika have just arrived back from school, and little Omar, who is not so little now, but a big, chunky, misbehaving brat of a child, has decided that they are going to play with him.

The sooner that child starts school and learns a little discipline, the better.

Ida, his Mother, refuses to chastise him at all, and so when he does something naughty or spiteful then it’s left to Sainabou, who is slow to anger, but bloody quick when she’s reached boiling point.

Apparently Ida’s cries of ‘You are going to kill my child…’ are getting a little monotonous around the compound.

Oh well, simple answer…

Clout him yourself !

We spend a pleasant hour talking and chatting to Lamin’s Father who requests a photograph to remember the visit.

No sweat.

That’s something we are happy to do.

Now it’s back to the compound and then off to see Ebou’s mother…

As soon as she sees us coming she bursts into tears and has to go inside to compose herself before she greets us, but Ebrima’s brothers are all there to look after us while we wait.

We both get hugs, and tearfully she tells us that Fatou Manta, Ebrima’s wife, is going to leave the compound and go back to her own family.

This means that she will not be seeing Amie or Samsidine, her grandchildren, unless they come for a visit at Koriteh or Tobaski and it upsets her greatly.

Haddy tactfully says that since Fatou Manta now has a stall on the market, then she will be better placed to look after her children, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

She is upset.

To add insult to injury, Fatou Manta will be taking her son’s possessions with her including her late husband’s bed.

I don’t quite understand the politics of these decisions, so I do my best to remain understanding and sympathetic.

I’ll have to ask Haddy later.

One thing I do notice is that their compound is a lot quieter…

The local lads do not visit anymore, therefore she has nobody to talk to as she used to while they waited for her son.

I gave her a copy of ‘Ebou’s Song’ and tell her that most of it comes from the times I spent with Ebrima, therefore this is how I will always remember him for these are the things we spoke about whilst we drank tea here in the evenings, and she asks one of the brothers to read it and translate it for her.

As he begins to read the first verse it becomes so silent you could definitely hear a pin drop, even into the dust…

The second verse is in Wollof however, which is when Ebou’s brother starts choking over the words…

Shit !

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea ?

He finishes, and the tears are flowing…

I’m finding it hard, but I think the whole family have ‘lost it’ ?

Ebou’s mother takes the paper back from his brother and takes it away to put it indoors somewhere ?

I don’t think she expected this ?

The brothers just cluster around, wiping back tears and hugging me…

One of them saying that ‘He always said you were his true friend and never judged, just said the truth before God…’

I'm not quite sure that comment was totally accurate from my perspective as Ebou' and the guys took no prisoners, but it's close enough.

I was just happy that I didn't come over as some sort of prat.

But by that time I was about to lose it, too...

Haddy hands me her handkerchief and we force back the tears together.

Christ !  I wish I knew what to say ?

Maybe what is written is enough ?

I don’t know ?

What I do know is that you cannot have too many friends in this world, and I’ve lost one of mine.

That is certainly enough to make a grown man weep.

As soon as we can, we make our excuses and leave…

Ain’t no disguising it, I need a brandy.

 

 

I woke up the following morning with a thick head…

You can take that any way you like ?

Today I’m definitely staying a little closer to home.

So I become the ‘gift monitor’ as the piles of clothing that we brought over slowly start going down and we finally see parts of the bedroom floor.

When you look at it laid out, with paper names on top of each pile then you realise how much we actually brought ?

It’s no wonder that apart from underwear and socks and a few t-shirts, I’ve got two changes of clothes only.

My only ‘work’ today, is going to be the cooking and so as soon as is convenient, me and Sainabou get together to plan a course of action.

The cooking bit is easy, but what do we serve it with ?

I think cous-cous and salad, the cous-cous as a change from rice and Saina’ seems ok with that, so she shoots off early down to the mini-market to pick up the salad’y bits before all the good stuff goes.

We’ll start the preparation when Mariama, Ida and Jalika get back from school, as then we can involve them, too.

If we don’t then they’ll only keep sticking their noses in, and asking what we are doing, so if we involve them then it’s a win-win situation…

Besides… making meatballs can get a bit messy, so who better ?

Yeah, I know… Cold calculating git.

It’s just seems that way.

The reality is that like most kids that age, they want to help so rather than have them get in the way, let them do something helpful… Especially if it’s messy.

It used to work with my two when they were young and it works with these two now.

They won’t do it for ever, I know that.

But for a first grounding in different foods, then getting involved, especially at the beginning, is invaluable.

First things first… Amadou has popped around for a visit.

We don’t see Amadou too much these days.

He’s stuck at college but is getting out as much as he can.

God ! He’s getting tall…

He’s going to dwarf me soon.

He and Sainabou discuss the forthcoming feast…

Feast ?  What feast ?

Oh God ! They mean the meal tonight…

Actually, I should have thought about the ‘How many we could possibly feed and still have some left for ourselves ?’ question, but I sort of stuck it at the back of my mind, which was pretty stupid when you think about it ?

Sainabou does the calculations based on the approximate size of a meatball and how many the family are going to get in each portion.

Yes… It really does come down to that.

As soon as she’s worked it out to her satisfaction then they start the usual messing about.

Those two have a relationship between them that goes beyond care, love, family and friendship.
Sainabou was originally adopted by Haddy when she was young, and Amadou was born when Saina’ was about six or seven, so Saina’ has always looked at Amadou as if he were her responsibility to look after.
Now of course, he’s a young man of twenty-one and she’s twenty six-ish but they still have that special relationship.
Nowadays Amadou can take the mick out of it, being a big growing lad and all, but Saina’ gives it back all the time, causing much hilarity to the rest of the family…
They really are like some old bickering married couple.
Hey !   The kids are back…
Right you two… If you want to help then go and change and then wash your hands… I want to be able to smell the soap on them…
Hey Saina’, we ready ?
The nodded head signifies the affirmative…
Right… Let’s hit it !

Know what ?

We could have made twice the amount and it still wouldn’t have been enough.
We still had people coming into the compound as the last finger wipings of sauce were being licked from fingers.
Chalk up another one.
Sainabou judged it as ‘different, but good’.
That’ll do me.
I ask if she’s going to make it, and she says yes, it was the lemons that made it different and not like Gambian food at all.

Tomorrow I’ve been promised a day off from the chaos and we’re going to rest up at Ocean Bay.

I can just loiter in or out of the swimming pool and Haddy can hopefully just turn off her mobile ‘phone and relax.
It probably won’t happen like that, but that’s the plan.
I want to go to the craft market at Banjul at some point and see Hadim, give him his gifts and all that. 
The likelihood is that he won’t be there anyway, but I can always leave them with his brother, Badou, if he’s away.
The thing about the Craft Market is nowadays I can just hang there and relax.
I don’t get hassled to buy all the time.
It’s not as if I’m not easily recognisable, and Haddy seems to be known at most places she goes, so we can just drift around and talk to the traders without pressure.
Ok, it’ll probably cost me a bit in Coca-Cola’s, Fanta’s and coffee, but what the hell ?
Anyway, that’s for the future and that changes by the hour.
Right now it’s time to play some music…
The choice seems to have come down to African vs Pop hits (Beatles, Abba, Aretha Franklin… They are all classed as ‘pop hits’) or Reggae ?
OK, mix and match…
Anything’s got to be better than the interminable ‘soap’ that the kids are watching inside ?

LIFE IS JUST A BOWL OF...

Life is a funny old thing when you think about it…

No matter what you do or what you plan for, it still ends up as a catalogue of disasters that you end up trying to salvage as best you can.
It had taken about a year out of my life to get Haddy into the country, and as for the cost ?  
Don’t even go there.
Basically, any reserve I had was now pretty much wiped out.
Physically and mentally I was completely shattered, and to make matters worse my Father’s health was beginning to deteriorate badly.
This, of course, put extra strain on my Mother who quite frankly couldn’t cope with the situation that was beginning to occur, but who struggled on regardless because the alternative was moving my Father into a home, and there was no way that was EVER going to be considered.
He had been in and out of hospital over the last couple of years, usually with the same infections that never seemed to get cleared up, but they would chuck anti-biotics at  him until they said he was fit enough to leave and then they’d release him into my Mother’s care and send him home.
Of course within a week or two or a month at most he’d collapse at home again, the paramedics would be called again, and he’d be back in hospital, in the same ward usually, with the same complaint… And this was happening on an average of once every six weeks…
The situation was not helped either by my Father losing his hearing (He was now profoundly deaf) or, belligerently refusing to have anything to do with hospitals whatsoever.
When he collapsed at home, my Mother didn’t have the strength to help so it was going to have to be hospital regardless of his objections…
I’ll tell you… Life doesn’t get easier.
I’m sixty miles away at the top of the coned off section of the M.25 and I’m the
nearest member of the family, so who you gonna call every time he collapses ?
I’ll give you a clue, it ain’t fuckin’ Ghostbusters…
To make matters worse (could it ever get better ?) the pair of them have made promises to each other that they’d never be parted from each other and they’ve been together for over sixty years…
This is the stumbling block that everybody in the family who is trying to help is finding out about when they fall over it.
Dad doesn’t want to go to hospital even though he’s obviously ill and so Mum ignores the illness and does her best to cope at home.
Dad collapses because he’s ill.
Dad gets taken to hospital.
Dad moans about being in hospital.
Mum capitulates before they find out what’s wrong with him and takes him home.
A month later the same thing occurs again…
And a month later the same thing occurs again…
And a month later the same thing…
You get the drift ?
There’s a pattern to it.
A child could see it for Christ’s sake…
So why not break the pattern ?
I sometimes wonder why I bother ?
Still, Christmas is coming and it’s supposed to be the season of goodwill and all that stuff…
Haddy and I were hopeful about going out to The Gambia for Tobaski at the end of November but that’s been put on hold because it conflicts with half-term holidays over here and so the flight fares have rocketed from about four hundred pounds each to seven hundred and ninety nine each…
Never mind… There’s always next year but first we have to get through Christmas and there’s only so much overtime I can do to pay for it.
And then it occurred…
My Father had been taken into hospital after a fall at home.
He had apparently been left for four days without anybody helping him or changing his clothing…
When my Mother rang me (In floods of tears, naturally) I hit the roof…
The whole family got told what was GOING to happen if things didn’t change.
Needless to say they all objected to it and I was immediately sidelined and forbidden to do anything about it whatsoever.
Was it wrong of me to want somebody at Epsom Hospital Trust’s head ?
I don’t think so ?
You don’t leave a ninety year old man to live in his own filth for four days just because you can’t be bothered or you’re short staffed…
But apparently THEY do.
And so I wanted somebody’s head to roll…
Not to be hushed up, not to be glossed over and swept under the carpet, but a big and loud complaint in capital fucking letters…
It was ‘Verboten’.
Never in a million years…
My Mother who wouldn’t make a complaint at the time, wouldn’t stand for it…
And so my brother was going to deal with it.
The fact that he lives in the U.S. of A. didn’t seem to have crossed anybody’s mind…
Ok…
Fuck it !
You try, because somebody HAS to do something, but if nobody is interested then let them sort it out…
My kids from my first marriage are ‘Oop North’ and in Spain respectively, and my brother is in the U.S.A…  And now he’s got to come over to sort things out.
Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Since the e-mail had been sent I was now persona non-grata anyway, so I was going to have a rest and get on with booking The Arcadeclectic Stage at Rhythms Of The World…
Thank God for a bit of sanity.

Christmas came and went with me taking one day off to visit my parents…

Thankfully my Father was back at home and not incarcerated.
I don’t think I’m ever going to actually be able to speak to him as his deafness is getting worse or his hearing aids don’t work or worse than either, every time I try and speak, my Mother decides to butt in on the conversation and answer for him…
It’s driving me fucking mental, but what can you do apart from let her get on with it ?
According to Haddy the strain is beginning to show…
I don’t know when I’m next going to spend any time with my wife as it just seems that every time I try and get something planned, the whole thing comes crashing down around me ?

The first week of January I’m doing a gig for Mark Astronaut at Club 85.

Apart from compering at ‘Rhythms’ it’ll be my first gig since the previous February and I’m out of practice.
I can ‘fake’ it, but that’s not my style so I need a re-think.
Right…
The first live outing of ‘Ebou’s Song’, with Haddy on the Wollof bits.
She’s scared witless, but addressing audiences is the same as addressing political rallies and meetings, so what’s the problem ?
The rest I’ll fit around it, and leave out most of the ‘greatest hits’ stuff.
I’m on third with a duo from Primal Device first, Smige (pronounced Smidge) second, and Silent Smiles, a young rock band from Harpenden way, topping the bill…
What’s more I’ve managed to persuade Mark to give me a thirty minute set.
Now the thing is, I’ve booked Silent Smiles and Smige for ‘Rhythm’s already, but they’re sworn to secrecy because the bill isn’t yet finalised, so I know what I’m on with…
They, on the other hand, haven’t got a clue about me.
Joe from the Device duo has seen me before, but he’s the only one.
Right… Let battle commence…

Pheeeew !
That was a scorcher…
According to Silent Smiles’ parents, who drove all their gear there, and Smige’s girlie posse, and Bob who runs the place, I was either, ‘the best thing on the bill’, or ‘the best I’ve ever seen you…’
So that’s alright then…
Cheers Mark, for sticking me on… And thank you so much to my darling wife for making the difference and conquering her fear.
Jonny T and Jo from Lika Sharps who were both in the audience concurred with the above, as did Jon Falconer, another local poet who we’d worked with last year at Twist of Fete.

Sometimes the Gods smile…

The following week we’re back to normal with another collapse from my Father…
I really don’t think I can survive much more of this ?
Still, I’m halfway through booking Rhythms of the World but it’s beginning to get difficult to get artists with the right outlook.
I can get artists…
We’re over subscribed in artists and bands, but Jesus…
Some of them seem to think that it’s just a question of them asking to be on and they’ll be put on.
Try again, people…
Try somebody else because you haven’t a prayer of getting on the Arcadeclectic Stage unless you’ve got the right attitude.
It’s difficult to put into words but I want artists who are happy in their skin.
I don’t care how many fans they have, don’t care what style of music they play, and I certainly don’t care if they are commercial or not…
I want artists who are prepared to stand out from the norm by dint of what they do on that stage…
And that’s difficult because they are becoming harder to find.
Every time I find one, they tend to get nicked the following year for one of the bigger stages anyway, so I seem to be consistently hunting for new blood.
This year I’ve got the biggest of all the local bands ever to reform, and when it hits the grapevine and the publicity machine I know I’m going to get some feedback on that, but again, we’re currently keeping it under wraps and only Steve, the Performance Director, and Bob, know for now.
I’d like to get some Gambian musicians but we can’t get them from The Gambia because of the government bond we have to put up of £5000 per musician if they don’t have a British or European agent, and very few have.
The problem we have with the Gambian musicians that are already here is also one of attitude…
They seem to have imported an attitude that I’ll refer to as ‘Let’s screw the toubab…’ wherein the only thing they are interested in whatsoever is money, and as much of it as is humanly possible, heading their way.
It’s not a game I play when I’m in The Gambia where anybody even attempting to try it on with me will be told to fuck off in no uncertain terms, but those who have moved here have brought it with them and it’s a constant in any dealings with Gambian ex-pats.
I don’t mind paying for a quality outfit, but trying to tell me that a bloke from Manchester, another from Bristol and a couple from London ‘could’ constitute a band to play the festival when they’ve never even met before, is an insult to every musician playing it.
Oh well… It’ll change one day when they actually take a little pride in their culture and traditions rather than trying to flog off a third rate imitation for money.
So for the third year running I won’t be booking any, and for exactly the same reasons each time.
The fact that a couple of them might get together to play a naming ceremony does not, in my book, constitute a band that can entertain a crowd at a festival, and besides, I don’t like being told that it’s going to cost me another eighty quid to get one bloke down from Manchester.
I know the price of fuel has gone up, but the price of taking the piss has definitely gone up with it…
Enough !
Sod it !   We’re going to The Gambia whether we can afford it or not, and my mobile is going to be turned off for the duration…
I know it sounds harsh, but I need a rest and if it’s impossible to get one here, then I’ll take one somewhere else.
Besides, it’ll be nice to see the kids again, and see how they are coping without their Mum, and so we booked the flight for the first week of March and left everything and everybody else to it…
Sanity was beckoning…
Which just goes to show how little I knew.
Of course back in the real world, my Mother is now having second thoughts about having my Dad at home because she is just about at the end of her tether and beginning to get just a teensy-weensy little bit hysterical over having to cope with him on a daily basis…
(For teensy-weensy read ‘a hell of a lot…’ I’m being sarcastic)
And my ‘For Christ’s sake get him in a home and we might not lose you, too…’ is being echoed by my brother.
So…
Care homes are now being looked at, and Brother Pat is coming back over here in March…
Personally I don’t give a damn when he comes over… I’m past caring.
Besides… We’ve booked, and there’s no way we’re changing, cancelling or deviating from OUR script.
I’ve had to put my whole life on hold for over a year and I’m not prepared to do that anymore, but until Pat got involved, nothing I’ve ever said has been taken seriously, but now he’s saying the same things, people are listening…
And you wonder why I feel as I do ?
He’s coming in March but we’ll be back for a couple of days before he flies in…
All we have to do is find room in our twenty kilogram each allowance for all the stuff that we’re supposed to take out there, which is certainly easier said than done.
We’re being sent stuff on a daily basis from Fatou, and so in the end Haddy has to tell her ‘NO MORE !’
We’re about twelve kilos overweight, so we’re definitely going to need a re-think and a re-pack.
But finally, only five kilo’s over by the bathroom scales, which is going to cost me fifty quid if I can’t sweet-talk somebody at the check-in desk, we are ready to go…

DEPARTURE...

Ebrima was not a good Muslim.
Well, as far as Islam the religion was concerned, he wasn’t.
He drank alcohol if he could get it, gin being a particular favourite, but brandy, whiskey, beer, Guinness, palm wine… Anything would do, and he smoked as much weed or ganja as he could get hold of.
He used to sell it too, which didn’t endear him to the elders of the village too much.
They thought him too wild, too argumentative, too stoned, and so they never seemed to take him seriously unless he got violent.
Then they took him seriously.
They had to.
They really hadn’t too much choice in the matter as somebody could have got seriously hurt if they hadn’t.
A slight rangy man in his late thirties, standing about five feet ten or eleven inches in his bare feet without an ounce of fat on him.
You could look at him sometimes and think that a slight gust of wind would have blown him over, but what there was of him was solid muscle.
The sort of guy who, if he’d indulged in arm wrestling, would have won any bout that he entered just by dint of his size, for nobody would have believed the strength in that slight body.
He’d never finished the basic Gambian school system with the result that he could neither read nor write.
Despairing of Ebrima ever amounting to anything, his family decided the lad should learn to fend for himself and so had apprenticed him to a builder.
That was about the only schooling that Ebrima had been given.
The strange thing was, he discovered that he had an aptitude for building, and since he’d learned his lessons well, in time he started working for himself, earning his own money.
That suited Ebrima.
He may have been totally illiterate but he was beholden to no man, and he liked building.
It seemed to stir something inside him.
I tried to sing him a song once, while over at his compound.
An old reggae tune by The Heptones called Book of Rules.
I told him it was his song and I always thought of him when it got played on the radio which happened rarely, but that I’d got a pretty good version by Bobby and The Midnites, and if I managed to get a cd version, I’d burn him a copy.
The chorus goes something like this…
‘Poor people like you and me will be builders for eternity
Each is given a bag of tools…
Shapeless lives… And a book of rules’
He dug it.
He was a Muslim, remember ?
He could see where it was coming from, even though the original had been Christian in context.
Makes just as much sense if it’s the Koran, so why not ?
He liked building although it was definitely backbreaking labour in The Gambia.
Health and safety isn’t exactly top of the agenda when you’re half way up a wooden scaffold around a two or three storey building, and he’d already lost the use of one eye when a small chip of stone had flown up from one of his hammer blows.
But buildings are something to be proud of, and he took pride in his job.
He was good at it.
He hated having to build on the cheap, and he always counselled against it.
Over in The Gambia the building regulations are quite different to Europe.
You can build something with no foundations.
You can also build using mud bricks as opposed to breeze-block and cement.
But the likelihood is that any building so constructed will come crashing down after a couple of years as the Gambian rainy season which lasts from June through to the end of October is pretty unforgiving, and when it rains it rains, and you better believe it…
He hated building with no foundations.
He hated building with mud bricks, but it’s a poor country and when people need a roof over their heads then needs must, so he swallowed his pride and took the money.
If he hadn’t then somebody else would, but it always rankled.
There had to be a better way…
As for payment, well if it was a government job then he’d get paid…
He didn’t know when, nobody ever does in that game, and he might have to wait a year even, but eventually the money would come and he’d usually spread it around his friends, then buy a bit more weed, take a few days off and then start all over again.

Sometimes people wouldn’t pay for his time and labour.
That wasn’t the best idea they ever had in their lives.
There is a story still told in Fagikunda and it’s not apocryphal…
Ebrima built a two storey house for a businessman who lived about nine miles away.
To save money, he’d get up before anybody else, before the mosque’s first calling to prayer even, to walk the nine miles to start work.
The house was built and the businessman moved in with his family…
But he wouldn’t pay Ebrima for building it.
There was always some excuse.
You know what I’m talking about here ?
We all do, because I’m quite sure we’ve all done it ?
The money is at the bank.
Wait until my wife gets back with the money…
My brother is looking after the money for me…
Come on… We’ve all done it, but out in The Gambia that could be the difference between a family living or starving.
After three months of constant excuses he decided that this guy taking the piss was not an ok option…
So he told his family that he’d be bringing the money back tomorrow.
The following morning he got up before anybody else, stuck his cutlass (They still use cutlasses in The Gambia... The Kankurang has two…) in his belt and walked the nine miles to the guy’s house.
He gets there, and waits quietly outside the compound for the family to wake up.
First one to awaken is the wife who asks him why he has come and tells him that their house is lovely and they are all so pleased with it.
Ebrima tells the guy’s wife that he has come to see her husband on this appointed day to collect his payment for building the house, so she invites him inside to wait until her husband is up.
Ebrima says no thank you, he is dusty after his journey and it would be more fitting for him to wait outside.
So the wife tells the guy that Ebrima is outside, and has come on this appointed day to collect his money, and the guy goes outside to ask Ebrima why he is there, because he made no appointment ?
Of course when he gets outside, the first thing he sees is Ebrima holding his cutlass, and the conversation went something like this…
‘Salaam Aleikum… Why are you here ?’
‘Malikum Salaam… I have come for my money, that is all…’
‘Please come in and I can offer you refreshment’
‘No thank you, I would not like to put you or your family out…’
He runs his fingers over the edge of the cutlass blade…
‘Please wait and I will fetch the money from my house’
‘Thank you’
Within two minutes Ebrima has the money in his pocket paid in full and is off walking the nine miles back to his home.
That was Ebrima.
He had a way of doing things…
Not necessarily the way other people did things, but reasonably effective nevertheless.

I first met him in January 2008 on my first trip out to see Haddy.
I hadn’t been in the country more than forty eight hours when I got the invitation to go and hang with Ebrima and the guys over the road.
Ostensibly for a chat, but as Haddy said…
‘Be careful… They all smoke over there, and they will try and make you stupid…’
Well that was an understatement for a start.
I figured what the hell ?
It had been a while since I’d indulged, but I’d always had a reasonable tolerance of that stuff.
When in Rome, and all that…
First they invite me to sit with them, then they stick a three paper doob’ in my mouth, and then they start offering the sweet green Chinese tea that they make over there…
The main topic of conversation was this Christian vs Muslim thing that all the newspapers were talking about since 9/11, and the wars that Tony B’liar and Georgie W. Bush had started, which seemed to be interminable at that moment in time…
That bastard Blair… He’s done so much damage to the image of Britain abroad.
One day he’s going to get called to account for it…
But first things first…
‘All Christians are the same’
‘All toubabs are Christians’
‘All Christians are crusaders’
‘All toubabs are crusaders’
All… etc, etc, etc, ad-infinitim.
ENOUGH !
‘One. I might be a fuckin’ toubab but I’ve certainly never claimed to be a Christian.
Two. I’m just a guy who writes a bit and performs on stage and that’s it. During the day I just work for a local council.
Three. I’m definitely not a fuckin’ crusader, so if all you want to do is insult my colour, which I, like you, can do fuck all about, then this conversation is fucking pointless…’
Silence…
Some things piss me off, and pig-ignorant insults are one of them.
If you are going to insult somebody then don’t generalise as that really is the pits, and only an ignorant arsehole would do that…
And Ebrima said…
‘You are right Chris’ (pronounced Chrees) ‘They are getting a little stupid…’
And he said something in Wollof and the whole confrontational thing just stopped dead in its tracks.
Then I got passed the second joint…
African weed is definitely different to European… It makes me cough for a start.
So after the second coughing fit I passed it along the line, even though they’d already got two going the rounds…
Then Haddy came over to ‘rescue’ me.
I said I’d be over in half an hour because I wanted to finish the conversation and she said ok and left me to it…
The following day I got invited again, but this time it would just be me and Ebrima…
And slowly, and sometimes with the aid of one of his brothers as a translator, we got to know each other…
I dunno…
There was something about the guy.
He had a code of ethics that would shame some people over here, and yet he dealt dope on the side ?
Here’s an example…
One of his friends asked me once, while I was over in his compound, to see if I could bring him a mobile ‘phone next time I came over ? And Ebrima heard him.
Next thing I know, there’s a furious row going on and Ebrima was frogmarching this poor guy to the front gate and tossing him out into the street…
I asked him when he got back what that was about, and was told that ‘Asking one of his (Ebrima’s) friends (me) whilst in his compound for favours, was very rude and you don’t do that sort of thing, and so he had to go…
Easy isn’t it ?
Now when would that ever occur over here ?
Face it…
Never !
But there it’s regarded as very impolite and you don’t do it…
Even if the bloke concerned IS a toubab, you don’t do it.
Hospitality is sacrosanct, and you do not abuse it.

The more I got to know Ebrima, the more the paradoxes showed up.
Finally, one night I called him a radical revolutionary and he laughed and told me that I mustn’t call him a radical as that was not something that was nice.
I asked why not, because sometimes I was ?
He just said that he wasn’t a radical, but he wanted better…
He wanted a better system to live within.
He saw where things were going wrong, yet was powerless to effect any change so he ignored most of the conventions that his society expected of him and became, in effect, an outlaw in the proper sense of the word (and we ain’t talking Billy the Kid stuff here…)
I chipped in with the old Bob Dylan quote ‘To live outside the law you must be honest…’ and he asked me to repeat it, and so I did…
He smiled, and said that whoever said that knew what they were talking about, and I could only agree.
He thought deeply about what changes were going to be necessary and where and what they could lead to, and yet he was also the one who told me that ‘Women are not conducive to the art of conversation between friends…’
I understood where he was coming from in a Muslim sense, but I said I could never go along with that, although when I got up onstage I could play devil’s advocate and occasionally do take that position, just to wind some people up…
Then I told him that when I was back home in England I had been thinking about some of the things that he and I were talking about while I was here, and that I wanted to write something…
I’d got ideas but I needed a kind of hook to hang them on if it were to be worthwhile ?
So we talked about it for a bit and I had a few ideas, most of which I discounted as soon as I got back home.
The damn thing seemed to be taking forever until I thought of the one tangible thing that really defines that little country…
Oh for Christ’s sake !
Why not use the river ?
The thing is over two hundred miles long, it’s twelve miles wide at the mouth and because of that you can see it from space, so why not ?
I’d forgotten Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad, where they show the escaped slaves the map of Africa and one of them suddenly realises that the big river that he sees on the map is the area where he and some of his companions come from.
So I used the river, and suddenly the whole thing seemed to work…
Mission accomplished.
Well, not quite, because Ebou’ hadn’t heard it, and I wanted some of it in Wollof to reflect his input, but hell… Haddy could do the translation.
And so Ebou’s Song was born.
The first time I think I actually succeeded in marrying what I do here in the U.K. to a totally African, and specifically Gambian, concept ?


EBOU’S SONG

We’ll sing our simple folk song while remembering the past
We’ll sing it for the mysteries of life both deep and vast
We’ll sing it with our family and sing it with our friends
Sing it with a happy heart then sing it once again

Dinyn woy pour sunu magie sen jamano bi passey
Teh nu woy pour halle yi ak sen bugal bi warra nyoo
Nyu woy pour sunu janga lehkat yi ak sen hamham bu nui johai
Woy sunu woy pour nyep teh nyu woy ak sunu hol yep

Let our message be of hope and peace that all may understand
Let it resonate from all our hearts ‘till it reaches other lands
Our simple song of freedom
Our song of dignity
Let it roll on like a river as it flows into the sea

So sing it for the black man and sing it for the white
Sing it until everyman has turned toward the light
We’ll sing for Mama Africa and sing for east and West
Sing it loud for everyone who ever felt oppressed

Woy sunu woy nekal sunu bopa ak woy pour am sunu bopa
Woy ko chikou beh nyep muna doh ak orma
Nu woy ko beh chikou nagibi ak nu woy ko chi run tau bi
Woy… Ndah bo yekate bena hol, dor nya ka dara
A simple song of freedom
A song of dignity
Let it roll on like the river as it flows into the sea
Let it roll on like a river as it flows into the sea
Let it roll on like a river until all mankind stands free



He had a lot of time for Haddy, recognising that she was a figure of constant change for the better in local people’s lives, but they used to argue like cat and dog.
At one point she even banned him from her compound for coming over with a lit spliff, and she wasn’t joking either.
So he said he’ll kill her if she goes to his, and he’ll throw out anybody who talks to her, and at that point his wife and his mother say that if that’s the case then they will pack now…
He really was a man of paradox but because of the drinking and the smoking, his own family were ashamed of him.
His attitude was totally alien to their sensibilities and yet he loved them all, although you’d never know it the way he spoke to them, sometimes ?
His stepfather was one of the elders of the mosque who council the local Imam but that obviously just made matters worse.
He knew unerringly where things were wrong and yet if he voiced any of it then people thought him mad or stoned and so they ridiculed him.
Who knows where he got those ideas from ?
Certainly not whilst in the village, that’s for sure.
Haddy thinks that maybe the three years he spent with the mainly Catholic Christian community when he was younger, down in Helol in Cassamance may have had something to do with it, but nobody really knows and Ebrima never said ?
Then I turn up of all people…
The one guy around who can understand the deeper Ebrima.
Why me ?
I don’t know…
Haven’t a clue ?
How one argumentative white Englishman who believes in God(s) but not necessarily any of the Christian dogma and the bullshit that has been attached to it, and who flatly refuses to take things too seriously, and one argumentative black African Muslim who doesn’t give a rats arse about anybody and anything, and who won’t take crap from anyone, could get along like they did is beyond any normal comprehension.
But it’s what happened, so it must have been God’s will…
Ha ha ha…

He married Fatou Manta Jarra against all advice.
She was as illiterate as he was, and came from one of the outlying villages but it was definitely love (or lust) at first sight, as Fatou Manta is a very strikingly beautiful woman.
Then their arguments started…
And they never stopped.
Their first child was a daughter, Ami.
She’s a sweet little thing with two faces.
A big happy smiling one, and a very serious looking one…
Then the troubles really began…
Ebrima wanted a son but his wife just couldn’t seem to conceive again.
He told me once that he was thinking of taking another wife as his was now barren,
so I asked him if he’d ever thought of cutting down on the smoking, as that definitely reduces a man’s sperm count ?
He’d never heard of that and thought I was making it up.
I told him to seek medical advice before he did something he might regret, and I was sure that he would be told by the medical profession that I was not making that up and that it was actually a fact…
So he did.
Next thing I hear is that Ebrima has given up smoking…
Not just the weed but cigarettes as well.
His first son, Samsidine, was born at the end of August 2010.
Three weeks before Haddy took her flight to England.
I sent him twenty five pounds towards Samsidine’s naming ceremony knowing that he’d have next to nothing in his own pot, and got the message back through Haddy’s eldest daughter, Fatou, that he was always thinking of me, and that I was truly his friend.
When Haddy flew in she told me the things that were happening that he’d kept back…
Ebrima was ill.
Nobody knew what it was, but his mother would not let him go to the hospital to find out.
She was convinced that he would get better with God’s intervention and so had arranged for the local marabouts to come and read verses from the Koran over her son while getting him to drink some herbal concoction.
Even Haddy had swallowed her pride and gone over there and begged him to get himself or get one of his friends to take him to the local hospital, or at the very least to the local pharmacy, as the guy who runs that is definitely the next best thing to a consultant locally, and even I would trust his diagnosis, but it was not to be…
Ebrima just got weaker and weaker until in the end I think even he knew he was going to die.
I rang the girls two weeks before it occurred, and they took the ‘phone to him in his compound, holding it to his ear so that he could hear me.
He himself was too weak to speak, but he broke down in tears as he heard me and Haddy begging him to get himself to the hospital.
It didn’t happen.
We received the news at 8.05am our time, on October 31st…
All Hallowes Eve…
Hallowe’en.
You know what ?
If God is going to take Ebrima on Hallowe’en then he’s got himself a serious problem, because that guy will give him as good as he gets…
And Ebrima wasn’t known for taking prisoners.
He was my friend whatever else he may have been, and I was going to miss him.
And besides…
If what Leon Trotsky said was true, and that there are no small revolutions, only one big one that rolls inexorably onward, then that revolution was definitely going to be a little harder to fight, as now there is one less of us…

What killed him ?
Mostly ignorance.
Poverty.
Sticking to the local native and religious customs.
All of these played their part.
Maybe blood poisoning from the symptoms we were told about ?
Nobody will ever really know.
Ebrima finally had his son, and he knew him for just over two months.
Whether Muslim or Christian or Pagan or any other for that matter, God certainly does work in mysterious ways…
But sometimes he can be a right cunt !


A couple of things before I sign out...

One.

The translation of the Wollof in Ebou's song to English is as follows:

We'll sing it for our elders whose race is almost run
And sing it for the children and their wisdom yet to come
Sing it for our teachers and the knowledge they impart
Sing our song for everyone and sing it from the heart

Sing the song for freedom and sing for liberty
Sing it loud 'till everyone can walk with dignity
Sing the song up to the sun and sing it to the rain
Sing... For if you lift one heart it will not be in vain

And two... And this is probably a little more important...

If you are caught with drugs in The Gambia it is an automatic four year sentence and that's just for one wrap, so it's not a good idea especially if you are a tourist...

You have been warned !

ARRIVAL...

So here I am… Sitting on my arse on the floor of the arrivals terminal at Gatwick and the interminable wait just goes on… And on… And on… And on…
The flight arrived on time but there’s still no sign of her.
Finally… At half past midnight she comes walking through, pulling her case.
I don’t know who made the first move but we’re just hugging kissing in the middle of the floor and I can see and feel the tears in her eyes on my cheek.
“Any problems ?”
“A few…”
Hung up at immigration because she has a refusal note on her file for a visa caused by me not taking six months worth of my original bank statements on holiday for a previous visit when we applied for a visitors visa…
I’m all for tightening up the system but this is ridiculous.
She’s here because she’s entitled to be, but still they find ways to make things difficult.
It’s beyond any reasonable form of comprehension, but she’s here now, and that’s what really matters.
I’ve been here so long that it takes a tenner just to get me out of their short-term car park opposite the terminal.
Now if only Thames Valley plod have switched off the variable speed limit signs we can cruise straight home… Well, we can up until the coned off sections anyway.

There were tears back home in The Gambia when she left, as it will be the start of a new era for the kids.
Housai’ and Hassa’ are splitting up and going their own ways.
Sainabou will be stopping work and becoming the ‘mum’ of the compound and Mariama’s guardian when Fatou gets her visa to join her husband Vincent in Glasgow.
Fatou does have a small problem though…
She’s trying to make a deal with her father to rent the beach bar from her.
He wants it, but is not prepared to come up with the money as he’s ‘family’ but Fatou is holding out knowing she can get the price elsewhere.
Good for her.
I know what sort of ‘family’ he is… I had to go through the worries with Haddy when Fatou was taken ill and the tight-fisted sod wouldn’t pay for her hospital stay…
We’ve also got another little ‘un in the family.
Fatou has become the guardian of little Jalika, whose Mother was her best friend at school.
Unfortunately Jalika’s Mum died when giving birth and her Father now cannot cope with a six year old child, so Fatou said she’d take her on and this was acceptable to her Father, so now we’ve got another little one to look after.
I know her because she comes round the compound sometimes to play, she’s tiny for her age and quite shy, but that will soon change…

Ebrima’s wife, Fatou Manta Jarra, has just given birth to Ebrima’s first son Samsidine, and he’s overjoyed about that because they’ve been trying for so long.
Now little Ami’s got a younger brother.
Maybe the anti-smoking lecture helped ?
I’ll find out later.
He’s not that well at the moment apparently, and is having to take time off from work and as a former self-employed bloke myself, I know how difficult that can be sometimes.
Oi ! Darling… Enough.
I’ve been awake since six this morning and it’s now half past four the following morning… Any chance we can get some kip ?

Waking up the following morning not having to go to work is great, but waking up next to Haddy is even better…
Now all we have to do is find her a job.
Wasn’t that an easy sentence to read ?
I have to admit it was pretty easy to write, too…
The reality of her first month back over here was something else however…

I’m going to try and stay as matter of fact as possible when writing this.
If by chance you find any humour or sarcasm or cynicism in the writing then I’m afraid that’s just the way of the world and if you think there are any hints of criticism or that I’m excoriating (nice word that) a completely useless system you might also have a point, but hey ?

So Haddy’s been in the country two weeks now and we visit one of the local agencies to get her registered on their books so that she can get a job…
Passport ? Check.
Visa clearance for work ? Check.
I.D. card ? Check.
National Insurance number ?
Errr… Not yet, but hopefully this afternoon ?
So off we traipse to the local tax office to apply for one but they tell us that it’s now Job Centre Plus who supply them.
Ok… Walk down the road to Job Centre Plus.
The guard on the door asks us why we’re there ?
Guard ?
Yep !
The local Job Centre Plus needs a guard at the door…
Apparently people get irate and go for the staff in Job Centre Plus’s…
So…
Stand in that queue.
Her turn.
“I need a national insurance number so that I can get a job”
“Passport ?”
It’s proffered…
“Ok, go home and ring this number”
So we go back home and ring the number…
“Job Centre Plus… How can we help ?”
“I need a National Insurance number…”
“Ok… Let me take a few details…”
These are then given and taken over the telephone.
“Here’s a temporary number, you can use this number if the agency find you any work…”
Apparently the form she needs to fill in will be with her in two weeks and all she will then need to do is fill it in and return it, and she’ll be sent a National Insurance number.
Ok… Are you with us ?
Is it clear so far ?
So Job Centre Plus sent us home so that we could ring Job Centre Plus ?
Yep ! You got that bit right.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it ?
Maybe it’s to keep as many people employed in Job Centre Plus as is humanly possible ?
It’s not as if people aren’t going to ask for the form that will enable their employers to pay them for doing a job, is it ?
You can’t get a job (officially) without one so why not cut out the two week wait for the form to arrive ?
Well, I’ll tell you…
Your guess is as good as mine ?
Now she needs a bank account.
My bank, Barclays, don’t want to know…
See… I told you I’d publicise your helpfulness… Not !
She has no official credit history so they can’t make any checks so basically she can get stuffed…
It wasn’t actually put like that, but that’s what they meant in so many words.
What about a joint account ?
Only if I change all my utility bills and accounts… Like gas, water, electric etc to include her name, then they’d be happy to open a joint account, but not before…
This of course could take months and that’s only if it’s done successfully without any of the foul-ups which the afore-mentioned utilities are renowned for ?
Hmmm ?
Is it me, or is all this shit just designed to stop people getting a job ?
I can basically falsify my details to get her on the system (shit-stem… thank you Bob Marley…) and the bank will then accept this, but it won’t let her have an account unless I tell lies ?
Yes… I think that’s basically it ?
I refused…
Told him to stick it actually, and so we were then escorted to the door…
Jesus Fucking Christ !
How fucking mental is that ?
Oi ! Barclays directors and shareholders…
Here it is for the record…
And I quote…
“Are you fucking wankers on the same fucking planet ?
Any of you cunts ever heard of the word ‘integrity’ ?”
Because quite frankly I have my doubts ?
So we’ve hit a snag…
No bank account unless I falsify information.
Try a building society… And it’s exactly the same deal…
I have to pretend that she’s been here for ages and get all my bills and standing orders changed to include her name, and then and only then, can she have a bank account ?
Fuck ‘em !
It ain’t gonna happen.
Now I’m at war and if they don’t like it, then it’s just tough shit !
There is no way I’m going for that, so let’s meet these cunts head on and see what occurs…
‘No I won’t back down… You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down…’
And thank you Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for the appropriate quote from the song…
Just on the off-chance we tried H.S.B.C…
“We do have an account that we can open for your wife but she will have to pay to use it for the first year and then it will revert to a normal current account…”
And otherwise ?
“Otherwise we’d have to ask you to do the same as Barclays did…”
Ok…
I object in principle but I’ll pay for it because she needs a bank account.
(It’s called a ‘passport account’ if you’re interested, and it costs a tenner a month for them to ‘administer’ it)
But it’s hers, and nothing to do with me.
She gives the guy her details, shows her passport (get it ?) and the account is opened with fifty quid of my money…
Ho hum…
Does anybody else get the idea that banks are the most usurious and unhelpful institutions on the planet ?
I’m not knocking H.S.B.C. because they actually opened an account for her, but come on…
How long have I been a customer at Barclays for Christ’s sake ?
Sorry Barclays, but I’m not going to forget your unhelpfulness…

The agency are now calling with offers of jobs…
And finally the official form turns up for the National Insurance number…
Get this…
‘Thank you for attending the interview… Here is your new National Insurance number. Please give it to your employer etc…’
Hang on…
Interview ?
Did I miss something ?
She answered a couple of questions over the ‘phone like ‘full name’ and ‘permanent address’ but an interview ?
No… There was no interview.
Anyway, we fill out some of the form but I’m thinking that there is one huge glitch somewhere ?
Shouldn’t she get a National Insurance number AFTER she’s filled out the form and not beforehand ?
Then I notice the bits on the form that apply to me…
Hang on…
I’m not the one applying for a National Insurance number…
I’ve had the same one since 1969.
Haddy asks me for the details they want, and I tell her to leave it blank.
I don’t believe they have the right to my personal data on her form so they can get stuffed, too…
Or in other words…
FUCK OFF !
It’s just more officious bureaucratic bullshit to put in their unsafe computer system.
I’m not applying for a number, my wife is… So leave me out of it, please…
I never did find out what the ‘Plus’ meant in Job Centre Plus but I believe they left out the word ‘incompetence’ at the end ?
Job Centre Plus incompetence…
That certainly has a ring to it…
Sounds right, too.
Needless to say we hear nothing back from Job Centre Plus about the lack of my details, so the reality is it’s a ruse to get your private information that they don’t need onto another governmental computer system…
Big Brother is definitely alive and well.
But we knew that all along, didn’t we ?
We just didn’t really want to admit it to ourselves…

You ever get that feeling that everything is broken and just doesn't work anymore ?

Why's ? Lies and Crucifies...

Back home I’m just going through the motions.
If there is one thing I hate it’s an enforced separation, but within a couple of weeks Haddy has applied to the British High Commission with all the documentation and the six hundred and forty four quid needed to process the visa application…
And so we wait in a form of limbo for anything resembling news or contact from their august highnesses whose hands (or in-trays) are holding our lives in their hands.
And we wait…
And we wait…
And we wait…
After another dispiriting phone call I suggested to Haddy that she asks a couple of people she knows whether the High Commission are actually processing visas at the moment ?
Apparently they are…
But only visitors visas.
Leave it another week and try again.
Same answer.
You know…
I don’t have a lot of time for bureaucracy as some people are aware.
It gets nowhere and breeds more resentment and contempt for those who enforce it than even I could put into words.
There is no need for it and it’s just an egomaniac’s misuse of authority at best and a total pillock’s at worst.

Finally, I get the call…
They are talking to her tomorrow.
Oh shit !
You know when you agree to do something for somebody and the day is put off and put off and finally you’re both in the same place and time frame ?
Well that was me.
I’d agreed to be an artists model, nudeish no less, for my mate Jo Taylor who I’d done the
Twist of Fete gig for, and that was the same day that Haddy would be getting her interview…
Oh bum !
Jo had actually asked me to be Jesus in one of her artworks and like a twat, I’d said yes I’d do it…

And here's Jo and me in a practice pose for our new photo' book,
Kinky Poses Volume 5...





The idea was to show the humiliation and degradation of the poor bloke being crucified and so I was nude apart from a strategically placed bandana on my head and a pair of enormous white Y-fronts.
Honestly, you had to see it to believe it ?
So there I was…

Stark bollock naked except for the afore mentioned clothing when my mobile rang…
It was Haddy, and she was having problems.

The following are rough but accurate resumes of some of the conversations…

Haddy. “Darling, they want to know if you are going to sponsor the children ?
Me. Ask them what they mean by sponsor in the context they are using the word
and I’ll answer it ?
Haddy. He says the answer is either yes or no

Me. Tell him to define the word ‘sponsor’. How the hell can I answer otherwise ?
Put him on, let me speak to him…
Haddy. He says the answer is either yes or no…
Me. No ! The answer is, he’s playing games… I can’t possibly answer it unless I understand the question. Is he refusing to answer it ?
Haddy. He says it’s either yes or no ?

Well, we got nowhere with that, so try this one…

Haddy. They want to know how much you spend on bills per month ?
Me. Between £500 and £1000 approximately, depending on the month.
Haddy. They want an amount, dear…
Me. That’s ridiculous… No two months are the same… Why are they asking ?
Anyway, they’ve got six months of my bank account details sitting in front
of them, let them do the adding up and take a percentage…
Haddy. Darling, they say you have to give an amount…
Me. That is impossible… Ask him why he won’t speak to me ?
Haddy. He isn’t saying anything…
Me. Tell me something I don’t know… It’s an impossible question, no two months
are the same.

So we got nowhere with that either… Now try this one…

Haddy. They don’t believe I worked for the council…
Me. This is getting stupid… Tell them to e-mail L** M**** He’s the bloody manager
for God’s sake ! We both worked for him. You’ve got the photographs, for
God’s sake ?
Haddy. They don’t believe me, dear…
Me. Just tell him to check the facts and stop playing games, or better still, put
the Phone on loudspeaker ‘cos I’m going to explode in a minute and I want
that unhelpful bastard to hear every word…

Needless to say, she didn’t…

Haddy. They want to know how you intend to fit me into your flat ?
Me. I don’t have a flat. I have a four bedroomed house and what is more they know
that, they’ve got the house deeds sitting in front of them. Otherwise why did
I shell out for a certified copy of them down the solicitor’s ?
They’re just trying to get you to make a mistake in what you are telling them
and it’s beginning to piss me off, but that’s what our wonderful government
has told them to do, love…
Tell ‘em to read the bloody documents instead of implying, inferring and
twisting everything you say…

And so we went on, and on, and on, and on… A phone call approximately every seven minutes for about an hour.

What I didn’t realise at the time is that she’s having to do the whole thing by
e-mail so it makes it even more difficult.
Pissed off ?
Yeah… You could say that.
You could also say what the fuck do these bastards think they are playing at ?
I appreciate that the Tories had won the recent election by promising to cut the tide of illegal freeloaders coming into the country, but this was absolutely fucking offensive…
Haddy rang back to say she had finished and she was now at home…
Now we could only wait.

It’s going to be fun at work tomorrow !!!!

Rhythms of the World came and went in July.
I had a good if busy time and everybody who played the Arcadeclectic Stage managed to either equal or exceed expectations.
Along with my old mate Grant Meaby from Parnassus performance



who just casually went into a great poetry set...












Mention must be made of Mr Glen Matlock



Who's a nice bloke and very underrated as a songwriter, and... Does a great acoustic set which as a former Sex Pistol, he isn't actually known for.
Entertaining, witty, fun and talented... The man is a natural.
Get to see him when you can.

The Astronauts...



Who were playing the complete 'Peter Pan Hits The Suburbs' album for the very first time in their thirty year existence.

Jon Falconer...



Who we’d met at Twist of Fete and who’d replaced a missing poet at very short notice.

The Ballachulish Hellhounds who’d come all the way down from Glasgae...



And who by the end of their set would be quite at home as Hitchin Hellhounds...
They would definitely be invited back.

Miss Saxy lady...












Sandra Grant, who graces any stage she's on quite naturally...



Spandex Ballet, who quite honestly stole the show over the two days...















and Zounds...



Who had re-formed earlier in the year and were playing their only British festival date of the year for us.
For me those were the standouts but the rest were equally as good in their own niches and lets face it, it’s only personal taste on the day, anyway.


After about a month of waiting a very furious me contacted his M.P. to demand to know what was happening ?
I never did get to talk to him but his assistant did say that immigration was causing the most amount of complaints and I’d just have to be patient…
Well, that’s not surprising is it ?

Now it’s August and we’re off to Cropredy to see Fairport Convention except there is still no Haddy…
















Note the t-shirt...
That's about as close as the family are going to get this year.

Christ did it rain ?
It pissed down in buckets as Ruth, Joseph and Steve will definitely attest...

















I know ‘Croppers’ is famous for it especially if Richard Thompson is playing, but he wasn’t there this year so we all vainly hoped…
Alas, it was not to be.
We got soaked.




Honourable mentions must be made of ahab who are a great little folkie band, Leatherat, who are a great rock band that sound a bit like The Levellers but without the crusty political shit and are definitely on my must see again list...
And the amazingly talented...















and wonderfully professional... Little Feat...









Who really did steal the show this year I think ?


Despite having to make the announcement to the crowd that Richie Hayward, their original drummer from day one, had died the previous day.
It was a sad announcement for us fans who had seen the band previously, but they played on... For Brother Ritchie...
He'll be missed.

Aw shit !
Haddy would have loved them.
She would have known most of the stuff they played because we were always playing them in the van when we were travelling between woods.
Mind you… she’d have been a bit put out by the rain…
Bloody stuff was incessant.

Another month passes, Now it’s September… And finally I get the phone call…
Can I please ring the High Commission by twelve noon tomorrow ?
Well, I thought I could but the system went down at half past eight and didn’t recover so now I’m frantically trying to e-mail…
Help !
Who can fix the computer ?
Josh.
I’ll tell you what, that guy is a lifesaver.
Within half an hour I’ve got through and I asked what the problem had been ?

'Oh, we’ve got a new system, didn’t anybody tell you ?
They should have done because instead of taking five weeks (and no checks) like it did under Blair and Brown’s Labour Government, it now takes a minimum of ninety days because everything is being checked thoroughly…
I’m surprised nobody told you… They should have done'
Hmmm ?
Makes you wonder why Steven McPartland my new Tory M.P. didn’t, doesn’t it ?
We’d just got rid of Barbara Follett for ripping us off for over forty thousand quid in dishonest expense claims…
So now I want to know why McPartland couldn’t have been a little more honest with me ?
Only two possibilities spring to mind…
Either he didn’t know in which case he’s incompetent, or he’d been told not to...
In which case he’s an unhelpful self-serving git ?
Ain’t that just like an M.P.
Only interested in themselves and furthering their career ?
Fuck the constituents.
They don’t count for shit at the end of the day.
No real change there, then.

Three days later Haddy is on the line…
She’s been granted the visa she needs but the downside is that she won’t be able to claim for anything.
Not a fucking thing…
Every freeloading jihadist, every freeloader from Europe, every freeloading cunt from Britain… All can claim for everything going, but because my wife is African she can’t claim for anything…
And you know what the sickest thing is ?
It was the Labour government that ensured it.
So much for Labour being the people’s party.
A more corrupt bunch of self serving cunts hadn’t been seen in parliament since the days of the rotten boroughs.
They’d brought the price up from about thirty quid to a couple of hundred just for a visitors visa from the most poverty stricken continent on the planet when they realised the B.N.P. had been getting more support than they used to, because they wanted immigrants to be grateful to them and so they would vote for them.
Because of the treaty in Europe all the Europeans flocked in to claim their free houses and since most of those were white, then the B.N.P. wouldn’t notice the amounts…
And by and large, it had worked.
Unless you had a large immigrant ghetto on your doorstep, then the B.N.P. would stay quieter because they were unable to notice the immigrants…
Not black or brown, you see ?
And it had worked perfectly as the vote for the B.N.P had tailed off when it had mattered to them.
If you don't believe me then try looking up the prices of visas to the U.K. from other countries.
Europeans don't count, but what about from the U.S.A, Australia, Japan and China ?
I've already looked them up, now it's your turn.
Why are their citizens charged next to nothing compared to the African countries ?

We'd encountered problems with Rhythms of The World this year.
We'd booked Daniel 'Dante' Bello, a South African poet with family over here already so staying wouldn't be a problem, and who had a British publisher of his work...
The application was refused.

Now after the influx from Europe, this country is left with a huge welfare bill and no council housing…
And because of that my wife will never be part of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ because being unable to claim a thing, she is officially a second class citizen…
Every freeloading cunt in this country has more rights than she does.
How sad is that ?
Do I despise this country and those who caused this state of affairs ?
Is the Pope a Catholic ?
Do bears shit in the woods ?
What a fucking stupid question ?
Although the word despise doesn’t even come close to how I feel.

She’s got a couple of things to sort out but she’ll be flying into Gatwick in about a week…
It drains you, you know ?
Drains you totally.
I just felt numb.
Christ !
What have those bastards done to us ?

What A Short Strange Trip It's Been...

Well, you know what they say ?
All good things have got to come to an end, and this trip was ending much too rapidly.
We'd spent a few days lounging at Ocean bay, a few days lounging at Leybato Sunrise and a few days lounging around the compound.















We'd had sun and we'd had rain...





and believe me, when I say we'd had rain we'd had it !
I’d shot out there to bring Haddy the documents that she needed.
She’d collected hers together, and now was the time to do it.
The kids had decided what they were going to do in their lives and a further college course and studying was going to be required for Husainatou and Hassanatou who were actually splitting up for the first time in their lives.
It was going to make a huge difference to both of them as one could not now cover for the other.
Neither of them had ever got into trouble at school because they were always posing as each other to get the other one out of any jam.
Now they were both off in different directions, one into banking and the other into the travel industry
Amadou was still struggling to join the army as the intake had been restricted after the recent alleged coup attempt on the President and since neither of us had the money to pay for a pilot’s course, he knew he was going to have to be a pretty astounding student and was seriously going to have to study to make the top five students in the country so as to get a government scholarship, but he was prepared to give it a go and we were both prepared to support that.
Mariama had just changed her school and was doing a lot better than she had previously.
Well, that’s the way WE were thinking, anyway…

So the last full day dawns and we spend it reasonably productively at Bakau playing at ‘Tourista’s’, and buying a couple of bits and bobs (So long as I got them at the right price… And I did) and West Africa Tours in the afternoon, picking up a couple of cheques for Leybato Sunrise, plus I get a couple of shots of the local sea vulture population…
They just sat there on the roof of the building on the other side of the road as we went for a taxi.
Truth to tell, this was the closest I’d ever come to one of them, apart from a couple of visits ago at Leybato and Paradise Beach where they circled overhead while Mariama was taking me for a walk up the beach past all the local fishermen who were cleaning out their boats.
Hence the interest of the vultures...
They are seriously ‘Ugly as Fuck’ to use a vulgar English term but there is something about them. You see them up that close and there’s something strange about them…
It’s like they are just checking you out for dinner.
Always aware… Always looking…
I got the feeling I was being spoken about.
Yes, I know… Dozy old twat !
But… That’s what I felt and it was bloody eerie to feel like that in the middle of the afternoon.
The real life versions of something that escaped from the film ‘The Dark Crystal’.
Remember that film ?
It was made by a Muppet or two ?
Messrs Jim Henson and Frank Oz.










And those puppets are creepy.
I don’t care what anyone else says or thinks ?
They’re creepy.
Vultures are the same.

We gave out a couple of the bits and bobs when we got back…
Here’s Mariama with a few friends and something that was so underpriced I was amazed ?
I’d have liked to buy her the bigger one but this was a gift at the price, so…










Anyway, she’d been doing very well at her new school and had gone from about fortieth in a class of fifty five-ish to top ten.
Which in my book at least deserves a bit of recognition, and so…
One small ballaphon which for all them as don’t know, is the forerunner of the xylophone and marimba.
It’s obviously not a full size one, but hey ! She can always progress ?
One small intstrument for girlkind and one loud noise for mankind...
If you get the drift ?

The following morning was so sad.
I finally terminated my swimming plimsoles that I’d had since I was fifteen…
They’d been in as many seas and oceans as I had so it was soul destroying to get rid of them but they were more painful to wear now than actually treading on either broken glass, a jagged tin, a rock or a sea-urchin (It’s the last one that hurts the most…) whilst in the sea.
Maybe a comfortable new pair might make up for them ?
I took them to the rubbish bag myself.















Well, you wouldn’t get somebody else to shoot your bloody horse if it had a broken leg, would you ?
That afternoon it’s the usual sad goodbye at Banjul airport but we’ve tried to put it at bay by meeting Anna from the previously mentioned West Africa Tours who buys the goodbye coffees, and then the flight is called and I’m off through security to Luigi’s outside the departure lounge where I will buy a hideously overpriced cheese baguette with another black coffee.
Yes, the cheese baguette is overpriced, but I’ll give them one thing…
It actually tastes like it should taste.
This is no pre-packed airport food.
This is made freshly when you ask for it.
Ok, I’ll shut up about the price…
But it’s BLOODY USURY…!
A noisy flight owing to screaming and crying babies…
And they banned smoking ?
What’s worse ?
A yelling and screaming infant, or a cigarette ?
If you have to get rid of one then surely you could have got rid of the other ?
Looks like a fair trade-off to me ?
I’m tequila’d and tobacco’d up and so it’s the red zone for me…
Hi guy’s…

What a short strange trip it’s been ?
Certainly the strangest yet.
Now all either of us can do is await the outcome.
It’s not as if I haven’t got anything to be getting on with ?
Rhythms Of The World is next month.
Please God let it be soon…
Please.


Sorry about the delay in the photo's but it would seem perseverance pays off ?
Still takes about ten minutes to upload one shot tho'