In a hot, airless little room in Bulawayo, an elderly man rummages through disintegrating brown envelopes and rusty files. Faint labels carry captions such as: ‘Railway Staff 1932-33’ and ‘Wages March 1952’. There are dusty black and white photographs on the wall of men in dark suits and hats. Unsmiling, they all look alarmingly similar with their handle-bar moustaches and their arms crossed resolutely across their chests. ‘No. I thought I might have something, but no.’ He reluctantly admits defeat, so convinced was he that he might be able to help me in my search. I am in the archives of the Railway Museum in Bulawayo. The buildings themselves are run down and we are surrounded by the great hulks of rusting train carcasses. The museum, now a separate entity from the National Railways of Zimbabwe, is run by a couple of train enthusiasts, who are extremely kn...
It is a hot, dusty day in early November. Splashes of red, orange and pink bougainvillea line the road, like fireworks frozen against the vast blue sky. Lady Stanley cemetery sprawls itself out as far as the eye can see: order has given way to expediency and every available space is taken. Wreaths of fake flowers in garish colours spell out names; shiny foil ribbons flicker in the sunlight or wave limply in a stray wind. A minibus emblazoned with the words ‘Exodus Funeral Services’ bounces manically down a narrow road separating the Muslim part of the cemetery from the rest and, in the distance, a blue and white striped gazebo marks a current internment. The war graves are relatively easy to find, being enclosed by a low wall and demarcated by neat white lines of headstones, standing straight and tall. The heat beats down on me as I read the inscriptions: Labourer, Cepha...
Agatha and I go back a long way. As a child, my grandmother was an avid reader of her novels and when I went to the library to change my gran's books for her, I was often asked to pick up an Agatha Christie or two. So it was that I became familiar with many of her titles and the covers of the Fontana paperback editions of her books (there were the odd Crime Club editions as well). We also went to watch film versions of Murder on the Orient Express, Evil Under the Sun and Endless Night. I was absolutely scared stiff and remember having difficulty going to sleep afterwards! We would watch television adaptations of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot as a family. No one answered the phone and any visitors at the door were viewed with impatient disdain. During the adverts, someone would rush out and make a cup of tea and then rush back, often asking frantically 'What did I miss? Did I miss anything?' The first Christie I read ...
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