Archive
on Africa
This I read a piece by Andrew Harding, a British journalist currently working for the BBC, and entitled Break the Silence About South Africa. It’s around on the internet if you’re interested, and talks about the situation there in their brave new world.
I became interested in Africa through reading H Rider Haggard’s books and, whilst I understand that these were fictional, there was a strong element of truth in the scene setting, especially when describing the main cities. I read these books around 1960/61, and later read other books set in various African locations.
Nelson Mandela seemed an attractive name, certainly memorable, and I began to read of him, his trial and imprisonment in the British press, but I had no real feeling either way about the rights or wrongs of his case until around 1967 when, whilst heading for the ‘bus home from Marble Arch in London one Sunday I picked up a Free Nelson Mandela badge; there had, presumably, been a rally in support of him. On the ‘bus I pinned the badge to my duffle bag and thought no more of it.
On day the next week I transgressed at school in some way and, having seen the badge on my bag, the teacher imposed a punishment of writing two essays, each to be exactly 500 words, one in support of Mandela’s freedom, the other for his continued incarceration. I had no clue either way, so had to find one.
One of our teachers was my first port of call. He was what was known as a Cape Coloured, and he was very forthcoming in his opinions. A chain smoker, he gave me twenty minutes in exchange for twenty cigarettes, and I think that I learned more from him about how the world worked than in any other twenty minutes of my life.
Another source was from a man that I thought of as an Indian, but who was from what we now call Bangladesh by way of South Africa. He, too, taught me a lot about the realities of life in the colonies. Between them I had enough to write my two essays, but I had a view of the former Empire that seemed different to anything that I had read about to that point. I never wore the Mandela badge again for a start.
It is a complicated continent, and I do not profess to understand it. My own experience of it is confined to a short period of work in Libya, which is a story in its own right. In around 2015 I declined to take on a job in Nigeria because of the situation there. Back in my late schooldays we had adopted the Biafran troubles as a charity, and our interest in what had happened there still horrifies me, so to go to the country that had wiped out Biafra was, for me, not on, especially as the Foreign Office were advising against travel there. However, I did work with the Nigerian Ministry of Education when a team of their people came over to Oxford.
Africa is still somewhere that fascinates me, although I have left it too late to go there again, at least in terms of working there, and it is in working abroad that I have learned so much more from other countries than I would have done had I gone there as a tourist. I shall have to satisfy my interest through my reading, and Mr Harding’s piece was intriguing.
on going freelance
It’s coming up on fifteen years since I went freelance. I had been thinking about it for five years, having, in 2002, been looking at redundancy. The Berkshire Belle was in the same boat and so we had set up a limited company through which we could trade. As things worked out we both kept our full time employment, but then, for me, came a decision point in 2008.
It was time for my annual review, and I was heading up to London to meet my boss for lunch at the Institute of Directors. When I set out for the station that morning I had no thoughts about what the day might bring. Annual reviews were a chore that you went through and it was, in effect, a day off for me. A mid-morning train ride into Paddington, a decent lunch with a glass of wine and then back home to Swindon. I didn’t take my laptop or even a briefcase. The sun was shining on that early March morning and I was enjoying a day out.
From Paddington I used the Bakerloo line to Charing Cross and walked the half mile or so to the IoD. Meeting my boss there, he was using it as a base for several meetings that day, we had a brief chat and went in to eat. Things went well, and whilst it had not been a great year in terms of one area of work, the reasons for that were well understood and, in other areas I had done well. My bonus for the year was very acceptable and all that remained was to talk about the year ahead.
For each of the previous three years I had been, as they put it, parachuted into a different business division. I worked was a sort of non-executive member of the management team with no direct authority, but in an advisory capacity. In general my temporary colleagues viewed me as an unnecessary addition and I was made as welcome as the ex-boyfriend at the wedding, but there had been some progress and I had learned a lot. But what next?
In each of my previous cuckoo roles I had been able to work from home with the occasional overnight stay, but for 2008/09 they wanted me to work with a division based in Leeds and it was obvious that I would have to stay up there. I liked Leeds a lot, but to have to effectively live up there for a year was not something that I wanted to do. There was an option to find me a flat so that I didn’t have to stay in hotels, but I really wasn’t interested. I knew that to refuse the job meant that I was resigning, and suddenly that seemed the best choice.
We had a telephone conversation with the Personnel Director and a package was agreed. I handed in my mobile ‘phone on the spot, promised to take my laptop into the Birmingham office the next day and was on immediate gardening leave until the end of the month when Leaseplan would come and take away the Audi. I would get three months pay in lieu of notice and would formally leave the company at the end of March.
I left the IoD to walk back to the tube and, as I crossed Trafalgar Square, I was ten feet off the ground. I had not realised what a weight the job had become and freedom was exhilarating. Yes, the times ahead were uncertain, but I was going t go it alone. Every ‘phone call or email could bring a new adventure.
There were a lot of lows, more than there were highs, but I got to work in all sorts of places including Ireland, Columbia, Libya, Thailand and, twice, in China. I worked with companies from SMEs to global businesses with various governments in between and, apart from a couple of rogues, always got paid.
One thing did not change once I gave up the fat salary, private health care and flash car and that was the work ethic. Being your own boss is one thing, but if you don’t work you don’t get paid and the more that you work the more you earn. It is not an easy option, but you stand or fall on your own; own decisions, own quality of work, your own merits. There is no safety net.
the lockdown log 4
There have been a few lockdowns in my business life as I have mentioned earlier in this series. Some have been a condition of my contract and one, for Libya, included a very formal risk assessment spreadsheet. I was not arguing about that one though as I left the country a day ahead of my colleagues to get to another contract. They only just made it out and in another 24 hours the country was shut down. Read more…
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