I have had a small accident dear readers, hence the lack of posts on the blog. Apologies to all the thousands of our fans who’ve written in asking our whereabouts and pleading for the next bloggy instalment. Alright, we’ve had nobody writing in apart from a final debt demand but I’m sure you’re all dying to know the juicy details of the accident so without further ado…

First of all please stop your fretting. I can confirm the dashing good looks are still intact, however my plans for a move into classical piano and violin as a career are now in tatters, along with my little finger. Yes, an accident involving only my little pinky, but a tale in the telling that contains all the requisite elements of a box office smash hit: danger, excitement, a hero and heroine (that’ll be me and Nadine) a moral or two for us all and the vast magic landscapes of Zanzibar and Consett, County Durham.

Ouch yer bugger!

So, if you’re all sitting comfortably I shall begin the story of, ‘Big John and the scumbag driver who is going to get his as soon as I lay my hands on his filthy, cowardly hide.’ (the title needs a bit more work).

“It was 7am. A warm golden sun had risen into a high, pale

blue African sky. The house . . .”

You know, this is going to take forever and my buggered little finger keeps slipping on the keyboard, so how about I just give you the details and you use your imagination to picture it all on the big screen in ultra-quad sound wrap around feelme 4D vision. Yes? Good.

I got hit by a car on my motorbike.

Not quite the punchy read I was intending. Nevertheless, containing a few points worth elaborating on. The first being my wife. I drag her out of a career and away from her family to the other side of Africa and stick her in a shack and a penniless job that has at times been a challenge to say the least. Then I start careering round on a motorbike and have the inevitable daft accident (not my fault) to which she responds in her usual calm, assured way. And still looks great throughout it all. She whisks a bloodied me, with the help of some equally able colleagues and VSO, to whom huge thanks is also owed, from the roadside to x-ray, back home to pack, then arranges transport to the mainland via the police station to make a report, another hospital on the mainland, to the VSO office to arrange flights home and from there escorts me back home to blighty and another hospital. If my motorbike accident was a bad piece of luck this woman is without doubt the best bit of luck that has or will ever happen to me.

The second point has to be the state of hospital care in Africa, or at least from our perspective here in Zanzibar.

If you have an accident in Zanzibar don’t bother calling the emergency services. There’s no number. And if there were there’d be no ambulance on standby to come to your aid. You make it to hospital under your own steam irrespective of your condition which as you can imagine with some injuries can significantly shorten the odds on arriving alive. ‘Hospital’ is probably too generous a descriptive label. As an illustrative example, I was treated on an old wooden gurney by an orderly in a less than white orderly’s tunic, the cuffs frayed and coloured by dirt and/or old blood. He had dirt under his fingernails. His sole possessions of medical succour were two swabs and a knife and fork in a glass that for some reason sat on his tray.  Could be the medical ethos here is, if it can’t be saved, eat it. My hand and arm were dripping in blood and at this point were also covered in flies. Two swabs were not going to do it. He gave it a good go though. The first one was soaking in blood and flies within a few swipes so too the second one. The orderly looked at me, then he looked at the two soaking swabs. Then he looked back at me. Paused as though pondering the consequences of his next move, then picked up the swabs, rang them out on the floor and started wiping again. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. An example of hospital care or what passes for it in a land that from where you’re sitting is probably no more than 9 hours away on a plane. And I need to add here hospital care that has not lacked millions of dollars being pumped into it over decades by western donors. Quite an eye opener or little finger cruncher.

And as further contrast, I was back home within 24 hours and walking into Newcastle RVI for follow up treatment. Within the space of 1 hour I was seen by two nurses, one X-ray team, a plastic surgeon and a physio-therapist. And had a cup of tea thrown in. As a personal plea to any British nationals reading this blog, be proud of your medical health system. It is a rare and wonderful thing staffed by dedicated and wonderful people. Be warned, let those Tory wankers dismantle it and sell it off at your, your children and your grandchildren’s peril.