Majunga memories
I was hauled in for questioning ( well invited for a beer or two) by you lot. I was the only English crewman aboard the MV Wumme, (a scruffy looking trawler full of stuff that went bang) that seemed to attract your attention as we minded our own business off the Madagascar coast. Our German skipper had already tightened the strap on his U boat commander's hat once after refusing interception and boarding by the Royal Navy on the high seas. I was having a quiet beer one afternoon in the Hotel de France when my eyes focussed on a 'Keep Ballykelly Flying' sticker behind the bar. The conversation started with a simultaneous ,'what the bloody hell are you chaps doing here?' With an American colleague we had a great night at your club bar. I remember him being amazed that we all knew the same songs about basic bodily functions.
Thankyou for reminding me about pleasant days at the Village Touristique, a bamboo hut with a bed and a mosquito net and a bit of bent water pipe as a shower, what more do you need? Ah those barbecued crayfish! I remember a restaurant near there with a large domed ceiling. The chameleons would run up the walls until they lost traction, then plummet down on to the dinner table. We drank the bar out of red label and convinced the barman that his stock of black label was useless stuff that he would have to sell us it half price. Remember the dart board in Madame Chapeau's bar? Somebody had constructed a large pair of pincers for extracting the darts, embedded to the hilt, by the local spear throwers. I sailed off into the sunset, well Lourenquo Marques actually, and eventually took to flying aeroplanes for a living. I hear that bubonic plague broke out in Majunga in 1997, not surprised.