Journalist and labour commentator Terry Bell has a new book out: A Hat, A Kayak & Dreams of Dar.

It’s a memoir of the golden age of hippydom, the story of a desperate mission turned misadventure – to paddle a kayak from London to Dar es Salaam.

At the time, Terry and his wife Barbara were living as political exiles in London. By August 1967, they agreed it was time to get back to Africa. Their plan was to paddle 11 000 kilometres from England to Dar es Salaam in a five-metre glass fibre kayak – a kayak called Amandla.

Told with downbeat humour, in 2017 the story offers a little nostalgic respite for South Africans– as well as some insights into how to cope when things don’t go quite as planned.

Face2Face is the publisher (an imprint of Cover2Cover). It’s available in bookshops from November.

The book will be launched in:

Cape Town 24 October (Book Lounge) and 2 November (Kalk Bay books)
Joburg 7 Nov (Love Books)
Durban 14 November (Ike’s Books)

The following extract is from Chapter 9. Terry and Barbara, who have never done anything of the kind before, having departed (shambolically) from Chiswick, coped with sand and mud – and nudists – in the Thames estuary, are now en route to the Mediterranean via the French canal system.

The book includes recipes for the food that Barbara discovered and cooked along the way – French, Spanish and Moroccan.

“A terrific, uproarious story about the pluckiest, most ham-fisted, naïve, fun-loving and articulate couple ever to set off in a kayak.” – John Platter

“You will paddle across waters high and low, cruise French canals, scrabble around the back streets of the Mediterranean world, hitchhike and travel in improbable vehicles across miles of desert before reaching the destination …” – Sholto Cross

“This is a crazy journey only true love could tolerate, in a time where everything seemed possible.” – Don Pinnock

Read the extract:

CHAPTER 9
An anniversary dinner to remember

For couples who are still together after a year of marriage, a wedding anniversary tends to be a special day. And Barbara was determined that it would be one to remember, certainly in a culinary sense.

It was. But not in the way she had planned.

We set off from Paris on 25 September and estimated that we would be able to celebrate five days later in Briare. We should have looked more closely at the waterway chart and noted the number of locks we would need to negotiate to get there.

As we headed south, there were a number of barges going in the same direction. Having to share the locks with them, we were always ordered to the rear, even if we were the first to arrive. One of the barges was named Hennie and flew the flag of the Netherlands. For weeks, from the Seine and through the Loire Valley, we either tagged behind or raced Hennie between locks. The skipper, his wife and two children would come out of the rear cabin to greet us every time we came close. And we would observe the mother, almost every second day, hanging up or taking in washing from a line strung across the forward hold. In the locks we would also be given a warning signal from Hennie’s skipper when the gates were opening.

That signal meant it was time to cling onto whatever we could find against the back lock gates as the barge engines started up.

There were eight locks on ninety-eight kilometres of the busy Hauts-de-Seine section from Paris and this gave us time to get accustomed to the experience of multiple propellers churning up water in our direction. After a while it ceased being frightening, but it was never pleasant.

We stopped over briefly at Melun on the Seine and Barbara bought most of the ingredients for our special anniversary meal: garlic, fresh herbs, olives, onions, carrots and rice. These we quickly stowed in the front of the kayak and continued on our way.

Finally, on 29 September, we made it into the Canal du Loing. Like several of the waterways of France, the Canal du Loing incorporates a river. Just under fifty kilometres long, it drops down thirty-seven metres and has a lock, on average, a little over every two kilometres.

After forty years of digging and lock-building, this canal system had been open to traffic for more than three hundred years. The heavy wooden locks gates certainly bore signs of great age. We clung to these behind the sterns of barges and, despite the turbulence, the ancient canal, wandering through the countryside, was a relief after the busy Seine.

Once on the Canal du Loing, there was time to spare at the locks and Barbara managed to go ashore to one of the wonderful local markets to buy her final, and most important, ingredient — portions of fresh chicken. The poultry was handed over with the usual goodhumoured banter.

By then we had realised that we were not going to make it to Briare for our anniversary. Moreover, our estimate of two weeks to reach Digoin was overly optimistic. There seemed to be an inordinate number of locks. In the fifty kilometres from the Seine to the delightful town of Montargis, there were nineteen locks. And then thirty-two more in the fifty-four kilometres to Briare. We had been able to cover the ninety-eight kilometres from Paris to the Canal du Loing in little more than two days largely because there were only eight locks. The Loire Valley canals were a different story. Patience was called for, along with the usual measure of physical strength.

On the afternoon of 30 September, somewhere between Nemours and Montargis, we pulled over to a bank. Since we were going to celebrate our first wedding anniversary with a special meal, I felt we needed one additional item — champagne. So I walked to a nearby town to seek out a bottle of — hopefully reasonably priced — bubbly.

To me, in those days, all sparkling wine meant champagne. Even the gas-infused, low-priced sparkling white wine in South Africa gloried in the champagne name. But, in that single excursion to a local wine store, I began to realise why the French might be rather touchy about this casual reference to the brand.
I asked for champagne and was directed to bottles in a price range way beyond my limited means. Seeing my difficulty, the owner introduced me to the crémant of the Loire Valley.

“C’est la même chose,” he insisted.

It was the same product, produced by the same “méthode traditionelle”. And the price was lower. That was how I received the first of several lessons about wine, its making and marketing, while gradually learning to appreciate the different types of fermented grape must and juice.

As the wine-store owner informed me, even if the same grape varieties were used, and the same methods were employed in producing the wine, it was only champagne if it came from the Champagne region. Yet champagne had become something of a generic term for the best sparkling wine, so it didn’t take much to realise why that name was so jealously guarded. Or why the brand came at a premium price. In the event, I settled on one of the Loire crémants that didn’t too badly dent our budget.

Then it was back to Barbara and Amandla, and a further paddle before tying up alongside a grassy bank to set up camp. It was a peaceful spot, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, although we could make out a village — possibly Nargis — a short distance away.

Barbara set about preparing her most ambitious meal to date: chicken cooked with carrots, onions and garlic, enhanced by the addition of olives, herbs and spices, and a goodly dash of left-over white wine. It would be served with rice, so she had two pots on the go, one for the rice and the other for what she decided to call “Chicken Anniversaire”. I noticed that she had even managed to buy some bay leaves for added flavour. Meanwhile I tied a string around the neck of the crémant bottle and sank it in the cold water of the canal to chill.

When she announced that the meal was just about ready, I pulled up the bottle, popped the cork and poured the wine into our mugs.

We toasted our first official year together — and the crémant was very good. Barbara then dished up steaming plates of rice, which she topped with the chicken stew and gravy. It smelled sublime and I was ravenous.

I scooped up a forkful and blew on it to cool it. But when it landed in my mouth I froze. Seeing Barbara beaming proudly at me, I didn’t want to spit it out, but my face must have registered that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” she asked anxiously as I swallowed, grimacing.

“Just taste it,” I said.

She did. And burst into tears. The paraffin supply, kept in the forward storage with the food, had leaked into the rice, and the stew, which she had carefully spiced and tasted throughout, had mingled with the grain and was ruined.

There was not much that could be rescued by trying to scoop off the bits of chicken, carrots, olives and other ingredients that had not been contaminated. We gave up and buried our great anniversary dinner.

Since it was still fairly early, I made my way to the village and managed to buy some cheese, salami and a loaf of bread. Only much later that night, having eaten our emergency meal and drunk the bottle of crémant, did Barbara see any humour in the situation.

“But from now on the paraffin supply must be kept well away from the food store,” she said.

Next morning the weather held and we again caught up with Hennie. Our spirits lifted as we raced the Dutch barge to the next of several locks, where we would repeatedly be sent to the rear and have to wait. But at least we would soon be in Briare and could then make our way on to Digoin.

With winter approaching, we knew we had better get a move on. We had not only to get to Digoin, but then, by canal, with a multitude of locks, across to the River Saône at Chalon-sur-Saône. This waterway comprises the upper reaches of the mighty Rhône, then navigable by ships from the Mediterranean up to Lyon.

We did not think of the ships, only of the river that flowed south — strongly, we presumed. It would speed our paddling down to the Mediterranean. But we still had the Loire Valley ahead, starting at Briare, on its eastern edge.

An extract from Barbara’s selection of recipes, and the “Anniversary chicken” recipe:

Eating was always enjoyable on those travels half a century ago — largely, I think, because of where we were. It was easy to eat with enthusiasm when local cheeses, breads, olives and pâtés were always of quality — and delicious. As was the variety of fruit and vegetables. For the first time in our experience, we bought ropes of onions and garlic, along with bunches of fresh herbs.

Especially in France, we often found ourselves close to markets where the helpful stallholders seemed to have no problem with the
shoppers — mostly women — who prodded, squeezed, examined and smelled everything on offer before purchasing. It was a refreshing experience after the generally grumpy behaviour we encountered at London markets.

The variety of foods was wonderful and, to us in those days, quite exotic. I remember the barrels of anchovies, gherkins and wide array of cheeses from every region. In South Africa in my youth, the only cheese I recall my mother buying was what was known as sweet milk (a sort of Gouda) and third-grade Cheddar, a strong cheese that seemed to be used mostly for cooking. I only discovered recently that this was because the South African Dairy Board, until the 1980s, regulated prices and gave no scope for innovation…

Chicken anniversaire

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 peeled and chopped shallots
2 cloves chopped garlic
3 peeled and chopped carrots
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme (a few sprigs fresh thyme)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
6 skinless chicken pieces
1 mug/cup dry white wine
400 g tin chopped and peeled tomatoes
or 4 large chopped and peeled fresh tomatoes
250 g chopped mushrooms
1 mug/cup chicken stock
handful of pitted black olives
small bunch chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat the olive oil and sauté the shallots, garlic and carrots. Add the bay leaves, thyme, lemon juice and chicken pieces. Brown well. Pour in the wine and add the tomatoes, mushrooms and chicken stock. Allow to simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is coloured and tender. Stir in the olives and chopped parsley. Season to taste. The meal should then be ready to serve with cooked rice (preferably without any pollutants).

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags A Hat A Kayak and Dreams of Dar Book extracts Cover2Cover Face2Face Terry Bell