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RAILROAD TRACKS
When I was reading the African book and saw the warning about not driving on railroad tracks, it brought back a memory of, I think, 1970 or so. My dad took us on the holiday of a lifetime to Morocco. It was incredible and I'll never forget it. We went in a Ford Transit van that had been converted into a camper van.My mum though, wasn't thrilled by the prospect. This van was going to be our home for three weeks and even though storage space was tight, my mum was able to pack enough food (canned and dehydrated) to feed us all for the duration without resorting to 'that mucky Moroccan food'.
"But mum! Oranges, bananas, melons, eggs - how can they be mucky?"
"Shut up Jackie."
But when she really had kittens was one night as we were travelling in a remote area. A bridge was down. A young lad of about ten alerted us to this by waving a lantern in front of the van as we approached the bridge. My dad seems to be able to communicate with people all over the world, despite language differences, and told us that the lad would lead us over the river just fine. He would walk along, waving his lantern and all we had to do was follow his light. On the railway bridge. At snail's pace. Or at least, ten year old boy walking pace.
We kids, aged 16, 13 and 10, thought it was great. Mum on the other hand, had visions of her entire family being wiped away by an oncoming express train. To say that she was flapping like a budgie is a severe understatement. The great thing about travelling in a camper van is that all your supplies are right on hand. "For goodness sake Jackie" my dad said from the driver's seat as we were half way across the bridge. "Give yer mother a bloody brandy, will yer, sharpish".
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The roads in Africa
I’ve mentioned before – oh, probably only a few hundred times – that editing Petrol in My Blood has been fascinating. Reading all the material is wonderful. Not only the manuscript; I’ve also got press cuttings, letters, books, old ads and lots of material that hasn’t made it into the book. The book is already over 400 pages and my dad told me this morning that he’s just writing ‘another little chapter’.
Last week he sent me a fascinating book that he bought at an antique fair a couple of years ago. It’s entitled Trans-African Highways and it was published in 1958 – just five years before the London to Cape Town record was broken.
It is supposedly about the ‘main trunk roads in Africa’. Is your idea of a trunk road the same as mine? Like the A1 or something? Or, if you’re in my neck of the woods, Federal Highway? Believe me, ‘trunk’ road in Africa in 1958 was as likely to refer to elephants’ trunks as anything else.
The book will give a route and then say that you’ll be able to average a good speed of 20mph – the Eric Jackson and Ken Chambers Cortina regularly exceeded 100 mph in Africa in 1963. It describes how many roads are excellent but that they are impassable between May and September because of the rainy season. These trunk roads were such that the book gets quite excited when it’s describing one that is actual tarmac rather than packed sand or dirt.
It warns severely about driving at night (don’t do it, it says, ever), it says that some roads need to be travelled in a convoy of at least two cars and explains that spares, water, petrol and food should always be carried. One again, it gets very excitable when it finds a town that has water AND petrol AND food available. Very, very occasionally, it describes a town that has ‘telegraph facilities’ so that the motorist can send a telegram. (Remember those?) It warns very strongly against ‘driving on railway tracks’. There are some routes, which were actually driven by my dad and Ken where it says that the only way to travel between point A and point B is by riverboat.
When my dad and Ken Chambers did their first epic African drive in 1963, I can promise you, it was a different world to today.