The Blueskop in the Jacaranda

The Blueskop in the Jacaranda : an African Wonderland

The author was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire and had five siblings, of whom the eldest, Jack, was the only boy. She has worked as a chartered librarian, a teacher and lecturer, and an educational psychologist. Jean has been a member of the Stones Room Writers in Reading for several years, publishing her story ‘A Cold March Day’ in their 2012 anthology, ‘An Ear to the Door.’ Her poem, ‘Sipping the Liptons’ was the winner of the Reading National Poetry Day competition in 2011. Jean now lives in Kintbury, West Berkshire, with her husband, Paul.

The book is dedicated to her brother Jack, who unfortuately passed away before the book was published.

“He enticed her with his photos of the mile-wide Victoria Falls, of himself sipping beer on the palm-fringed beach of Lake Nyasa. Still at school and revising for exams at the time he left, she would

escape to her dream of an exotic and exciting life very different from her own dull existence in the confines of Ashton-under- Lyne. It was 1956 when Jack left England to live in Nyasaland.”

“She can’t wait to write to tell Jack of their plans and her excitement at the prospect of taking their two young babies on this adventure, of selling the house, buying their first new car and travelling out to Africa in style, as he himself had done, on one of the Union Castle liners which sailed from Southampton to Cape Town. She recalls the thrill she felt when he had unfolded the huge plan of the Windsor Castle, pointing out the cabin on the third deck where he would spend two weeks cruising down to Table Mountain.

His reply to her letter is swift, given the constraints of the flimsy blue air-mail letter post. And it is definite. Here we go: Advice from the caterpillar, she thinks. “Don’t go there,” he says. The country had been going downhill since independence. There were lots of problems: lack of organisation, chronic food shortages, corruption, lawlessness.
“Look elsewhere. Tell Geoff to take the Canada job.” He adds, “But knowing you, Jean, you’ll do your own thing. You took no notice of me when you were eleven.” She had been
offered scholarship places at Manchester High School and Oldham Hulme but had turned them down in favour of Ashton Grammar School, where her friends were all going. “Silly girl!” Jack had said.
“You are throwing away the chance of a lifetime.”
But she hadn’t listened then and she is not going to take his advice now. Neither is Geoff. They are both determined to go. Jack also writes, “Of course, if you do come, we’d love to have you stay with us here in Cape Town.” And so, in December 1969, they
say their goodbyes to family and friends up north. She hugs her mum and dad. Her dad’s eyes are full of tears.”

This patchwork of people, places and adventures is sewn together with snatches
and quotations from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, reflecting the parallels in this Zambian wonderland and those in Alice.

Copies of the book can be obtained from: Jean Jennings, Inglewood House, Kintbury, Hungerford, RG17 9AA, email jean.jennings@rocketmail.com. £5 plus £1:50 postage/packing.

£5 – profits to the Kaniki Orphans Trust in Zambia.
(£625 donated so far – 10/09/14)