Tower and Town, September 2020 (view the full edition)Never Doubt, by Nick MauriceIt is an autobiography, but more importantly a history of the relationship between Marlborough and the predominantly Muslim community of Gunjur in The Gambia. In fact the two are closely related. The good fortune I had to be born and brought up in Marlborough and be educated at Marlborough College gave me a very strong appreciation of my identity and the self-confidence to leave all I knew and loved and, thanks to Voluntary Service Overseas, aged 18 to work my passage with strange Liverpudlian seamen on a liner from Liverpool to Lagos in Nigeria and thence to teach English in a College in Sokode, Northern Togo for one year. While still a medical student, I worked for 15 months as a medical assistant in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, and having qualified as a doctor, in 1973 took Kate and our 15 month old baby Daisy to Nepal, for me to work in the field of tuberculosis control, thanks to Dr Barney Rosedale who had helped set up the Britain Nepal Medical Trust. I joined the Marlborough Medical Practice in 1977 and in 1980, thanks to my partners in the practice, I took four months away, working as a nutritionist in Kampuchea (Cambodia) for Oxfam's emergency team, following the fall of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. That challenging experience was a fulcrum around which my life revolved. My return to Marlborough coincided with the publication of Willy Brandt's Brandt Report, North South - A Programme for Survival which included the recommendation that 'partnerships for peace' should be developed between communities in e.g. Europe and Africa. 'The rest is history...', recorded in my book Never Doubt... which comes from a quotation from Margaret Mead, the American anthropologist "Never doubt that a small group of committed, intelligent people can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever has!" In addition to the story of the Marlborough Gunjur link, the book records excerpts from Brandt lectures given by HRH Princess Anne, Jon Snow, Glenys and Neil Kinnock, Archbishop George Carey, Mark Malloch-Brown, etc. I would strongly recommend writing an autobiography (it took 2½ years to complete) as a form of therapy. As one gets older one inevitably becomes more 'useless'! Recording one's life, even if only for the grandchildren, can be remarkably helpful. Never Doubt... is on sale at £18 in the White Horse Bookshop. Nick Maurice |