1982 or 3 and I was embarking on
family life, although still a volunteer teacher and the only white face in a
community of 1000 souls.
There were no alphabet books with an African theme to
my knowledge. I was toying with the idea of a dual language picture book. It
didn’t go much further than this. I’ve always been much better at starting
projects than completing them.
Shona and English, for those who don’t recognise the
mother tongue of most Zimbabweans. I was just thinking aloud about the concept
here, doodling in my pocket notebook, much as I type these notes into my phone
right now.
Filling out an idle moment with hopes, dreams and
memories of this fleeting life. This one is for my daughter Wendy and for her
cousins Cathy and Kundai, who stayed with us as young girls.
Titus Salt was a man of business in
the Yorkshire mould. “Salt preserves” and his family dealt in the
business of preservatives, chemicals of various kinds. Yorkshire was of course
sheep rearing…