Tower and Town, October 2020 (view the full edition)My Time In MarlboroughLamin Bojang was our first long-term visitor from Gunjur who studied in the sixth form at St John’s School 1984-86 I arrived in Marlborough from Gunjur with the late Mr. Sandang Bojang on August 24, 1984, and approximately one week later we held a farewell party for “my sister” Sally Lovelace, who left Oare and St John’s School to teach for a gap year at the Elementary School in my native Gunjur. I unofficially became the adopted son of the late Pat Lovelace & Alan Lance in Oare. They lived in (for me, coming from a community without access to electricity or clean, piped water) a luxury home featuring first-class amenities; a large two-storey staircase, fully stocked kitchen, 4 large bedrooms upstairs, fully furnished living room with a sizeable TV-set, eye-catching soft carpet flooring, and a gorgeous garden at the back…….incredible! Both Pat & Alan had a huge heart and a voracious tolerance for people. They welcomed me with wide open arms and unconditional love. “Mother” Pat in particular, was a bundle of energy, drive and enthusiasm. She really did everything and more to make me feel at home. She literally took me to every nook and cranny in Marlborough and its environs to help me settle down into my new life. They showered me with new clothes and precious gifts. In Gambian terms, they must have spent a fortune on me! I dare say Pat was also the best cook in all of England! Her recipes were simply out of this world! She even taught me how to cook scrambled eggs & mushrooms! Sensitive to my Muslim faith, she cooked separately for me on days that pork chops were on the family menu. Bless her heart! The culture shock was almost immediate and intensely intriguing. Initially, Pat gave me Sally’s room to stay in. The English are great pet lovers. Sally had a cat in her room that actually had just given birth to several kittens, and having to navigate my way around in the room was rather spellbinding! Sensing my discomfort, Pat later moved me to another room to help me keep my sanity! Even more intriguing, I quickly found out that household chores were a shared responsibility in Pat’s house. All of us (Pat, Alan, Mark, Kevin & I) took turns to lay the dinner table, load/run the dishwashing machine, and then unload it afterwards each night. We also took turns to turn on the coffee percolator, and served coffee to everybody. In Gunjur, men would have been completely excluded from such chores.  I also saw first-hand the loving, affectionate and jovial relationship between parents and offspring. After we finished eating dinner, Pat & Mark often pushed and shoved to get the best seat for television viewing in the living room. Mark often pushed her to the floor, and he would have the seat. Even more perplexing was when Mark would burst into her conversations, and dared say; “Stop telling fibs mom!” Knowing that I was in shock, Pat would turn to me with a smile and say; “Lamin, will you tell him that I’m his mom... he cannot talk to me like that.” It took a while for me to process and digest all this, and in the end, I absolutely loved it! It was a beautiful rhapsody of Western family dynamics. Ours is a rigid system that wouldn’t tolerate any such expression of endearment. The idea of my staying with families of different income levels was instructive, if you will. I found out that each family had its own nuances and intricacies so to speak. Ellen & Chris Firth, living at the foot of the hill on which St. John’s School sat, were also very warm and hospitable. They looked after me well, and it was fun being around their young children. Their proximity to St. John’s was a great convenience for me. No waiting in the cold for the bus into Marlborough! John and Libby Spanton too were warm and accommodating. With their meagre resources, they looked after me with care and compassion. I do recall though that they had no central heating system, and I had to sleep under 8 layers of blankets! At one point, I even tried using an electric blanket, knowing that a sudden rip of the power cord could electrocute me! Hypothermia was in the back of my mind but Dr. Nick assured me that I was too young to catch hypothermia!  I enrolled in St. John’s Comprehensive School in September 1984 to study A - Level English, Sociology & Economics. Here, everyone was warm and friendly - from the Principal (Mr. John Price) & teachers to the students. I made a lot of friends, and several invited me to their homes for dinner and family events. I especially remember going on a French study trip to the South of France in March 1985. We stayed in the beautiful Hotel Ibis in Caen, Normandy. I quite vividly recall taking pictures by the famous WWII landmark, Pegasus Bridge, and we also visited the American War Cemetery where some 9,000 + American military dead were interred. A long stretch of white tombstones dotted the green landscape as far as the eye can see! In the words of WB Yeats; “A terrible beauty is born” indeed! Another indelible memory was the May 1985 visit to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company Production of “As You Like It.” Having read so many William Shakespeare plays/books in high school back in The Gambia, I was thrilled to visit his birthplace, and witness an actual production of one of his classics! In July 1986, I went on a sailing trip to The Isle of Wight with Lorri Lovelace (Sally’s dad) in his luxury boat. I had a keen interest in current affairs and my favourite television station was The BBC. I tuned into BBC Radio almost daily to listen to world news, and to have literally, unfettered access to English television was a huge deal for me! I hardly ever missed The Six O’clock News by Sue Lawley & Nicholas Witchell. I still remember Michael Buerk’s insightful award winning reports from Ethiopia with images of a Biblical famine in our own 20th century world! He once opened up with these words; “The sun is getting hotter and hotter. Nature hardly shows any compassion for the people of this land. As many as a hundred people are dying each day...” thus prompting Live Aid and Band Aid for the Horn of Africa nation. The BBC was my window to the world. To this day, I’m mesmerized by the rich, colourful and poetic language that characterizes their reporting. And you know what? I had the rare honour of walking into Bush House, London with Dr. Nick to talk about ‘Linking Communities’ on BBC Radio. That was June 19, 1986! I had a fantastic first Christmas in Marlborough. Pat actually had a live Christmas Tree in the house, adorned with colourful decorations. The generosity was overwhelming. People showered me with all kinds of gifts. Father Christmas looked after me rather too well! And the very next day, December 26, there was a heavy snowfall. This was my first sight of real snow, and it was quite a thrilling sight. I remember venturing outside into bone chilling, nose numbing temperatures to take memorable pictures. I even got in a snowball fight with Mark and Kevin! Before Sandang returned to The Gambia, towards the end of September 1984, he reignited the debate on Gunjur’s request for funding for the construction of a 4-Classroom Block. The Brandt Group presented the matter to the community in a Town Hall Debate Dec. 4, 1984, and I was literally placed in the dock to present Gunjur’s defense! A rather ferocious debate ensued...People touting The Brandt Group’s core philosophy of forging friendships accentuated by the exchange of ideas and people between the 2 communities, and some citing such a project as a Gambia government responsibility. I was somewhat mortified. I simply evoked the popularized philosophy of “TESITO” (Self Help) (The Gambia government edict that opined that communities were basically on their own...they must come together, tighten their belts, pool resources to improve their communities. After the dust settled, not only did Marlborough agree to fund the PROJECT, they even selected a group of youngsters from St John’s (myself included) and Marlborough College to travel to Gunjur for a month to participate in the actual construction of the 4 - Classroom Block at the Primary School. The adults in the group included Alan Lance, Anita Bew, Mike Polack English teacher from St John’s School, Nicholas Fogg Mayor of Marlborough and Dr Nick. Coincidentally, 1985 was International Youth Year, and I do recall embarking on that historic trip in the summer. When we reached London Heathrow Airport, everybody else had a flawless check-in. I had to do an exit interview! A middle-aged female Immigration agent looked at my travel documents and said; “Your passport indicates that you’ve been living in England for a year. Where exactly have you been staying?” I politely gave her Pat’s address. She then said; “What have you been doing for a year?” I replied; “I’m a student at St. John’s Comprehensive in Marlborough.” She still won’t let me go, and while all this was going on, I could hear my friends howling; “Come on Lamin, we don’t want to miss this flight.” The agent finally asked; “Who pays for your education?” I quite deliberately replied; “You probably pay part of it because it comes from taxpayers’ money!” She concluded; “Obviously, they didn’t teach you any manners in school!” She then let me crossover to join the group in the boarding area. Perhaps I should infuse another incident here. Having been to Westminster to see Buckingham Palace (600+ rooms facility with a spectacularly large, eye-popping garden) and to Berkshire to see Windsor Castle, I quite casually remarked in a private chat with a Marlborough resident that, if England were to convert the 2 Royal residences into public housing, and erect additional structures on the vast properties, they could probably accommodate a million London squatters. Come Christmas, the lady sent me an earful - a Christmas card with this loaded message…”The Royal family is a symbol of our past and pride. You just have to leave it alone.” I obviously touched a raw nerve, and that hurts. I offer my sincere apologies, my dear. Some 35 years on, no one can fully assess the benefits of The Marlborough / Gunjur Link. I never thought my visit would take on such significance. I was a bit of a celebrity in Marlborough! I had a diary packed with dinner invitations, meetings, conferences, carnivals/cultural festivals, speaking engagements, etc. I must have visited just about all the historic sites in England! Even notable visits to Marlborough by Gambian luminaries like late Dr. Lenrie Peters, Dr. Bakary Touray, Gambian Health Minister, Mrs. Louis Njie and the towering Mr. Bai Bojang, who submissively prostrated himself on the floor in St Mary’s pre-school for kids to get an accurate measure of his height, all deserve a chapter in a future book on the Link! It gave me so much exposure to the world! In short, it made me a much better person. In the larger context, the constant flow of people, the exchange visits and lasting friendships have enriched both communities in a variety of ways. We acquired greater insights into one another’s psyche; our cultural heritage, our sensitivities/sensibilities. There were also indirect economic windfalls as many Gunjurians acquired a vocation and training in Marlborough that landed them a decent job upon returning home, and many more gained access to the EU job market, and to this day, make regular remittances to families back in Gunjur. So much more left out! Far away China’s Covid-19 tsunami sent ripples to the ends of the earth in a very short space of time. Just who is safe or immune from the deadly coronavirus? We are all vulnerable. What a startling/glaring manifestation that the world, as we know it, is a system of links. Our world is interdependent. We are all connected. We truly live in a global village, and as such, LINKING fosters international understanding and cooperation on a myriad of issues and challenges confronting us. As the world yearns for greater international cooperation to find a vaccine for Covid-19, communities all across the globe are yearning for meaningful grassroots linkages. 17th century English poet John Donne admonished; “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…”
Lamin Bojang |