A reader writes ~

A reader wrote today saying ~

Your 'Swallows and Amazons' life in Africa does sound wonderful. What I don't sense in the book is that you were ever worried about your future security even in the short term. Was it not something you thought of or does it just not show?  Or have you mastered being fully reliant on God?

Dear Chris,

I suppose my sense of security at the time was pretty much the same as the Swallows'. We were quite careful about our equipment and stores, but once organised we just went forth, enjoying the adventure of it all. As my letters suggest, I had the security of my friends and my family at home but had to trust God every step of the way. 

Sometimes, when things kept going wrong, I had no option but to up the trust and plough on regardless. Perhaps this is something I learnt off the South Africans. Whilst putting 'Ride the Wings of Morning' together made detailed plans for a trip only to have my (fully equipped) 4WD vehicle stolen in Johannesburg on the first night. Charles Baber advised me to 'always stick to the plan', so I hired a car and kept driving. It was rather a relief to only travel with my overnight bag, although I was jolly cross about the theft.

I did have good travel insurance but didn't get the chance to put much into my pension during the years spent in southern Africa. I'm trying to be sensible about that now, which is a bit dull. Perhaps I should have been more adventurous!

Yours,

Sophie

Reviews of 'Ride the Wings of Morning' on Goodreads

A collection of letters written between the author and her family during the time she spent convalescing and working in South Africa, this lovely volume also contains artwork completed during the years she was there. I enjoyed this book very much and would love to meet the author. 

A wonderfully refreshing book, innocent, appealing, very funny, insightful . . . a must read if you like witty, human life stories. Richard Pilbrow

Loved this book as it reminded me so much of my childhood in rural Zululand, South Africa, in the 1990s. Loved Sophie's adventures, and African experiences.

Thank you, Sophie, for sharing your experiences with us! 

How I came to write 'Ride the Wings of Morning'

If I ride the wings of the morning,

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

Psalm 139 v 9&10 NL

The idea for the format of 'Ride the Wings of Morning' came to me after things went wrong. I'd been invited to take part in a wildlife census in Damaraland by Blythe Loutit, Director of Save the Rhino Trust. My car was so elderly that it took me about five days to drive the 1,200kms from Maun to Palmwag in the red stony desert where she had a base camp. I arrived, full of excitment expecting to find a large party of scientists and conservationists. One lone game scout was sitting by a small fire. He gave me a message that the census had been cancelled. Blythe had not been able to reach me before I left Maun. She apologised, suggesting I stayed on at Palmwag until she and her husband were able to join me.

Apart from an open thatched shelter and a stone fireplace the camp consisted of two palm trees and the reed hut painted above. It was about twelve food square and newly constructed with three bamboo-framed beds arranged around the sides. Bamboo coffee tables had been placed in the two corners. Although not exactly secure it was surprisingly comfortable and proved idyllic. I spent my days sketching and painting the desert around me. It was a time of enforced meditation. In the heat of midday I had time to think, pray and make plans for the future, sorting out what I really wanted to do.

    

Whilst I'd been living in southern Africa I'd been too busy to keep a conventional diary. Instead I kept copies of my letters home. We had no computers, no photocopiers but I'd been able to buy duplicate books made up of thin paper suitable for sending airmail. The top sheet would be sent home whilst a blue carbon-copy was kept in the book, which I stored in a cardboard box under my bed.

One of the highlights of life spent in the Africa bush was receiving letters back from England - from my family and friends. My sisters Perry and Tamzin wrote such amusing accounts, from the safe haven of their everyday domestic lives, that I'd read them aloud, cherishing stories about their children and other responsibilities. Since their daily routines with pets and babies contrasted with the roaming life in the wilderness that I'd chosen, I thought it might be possible to put our correspondence together one day, constructing a travelogue of sorts. Initially I used the title 'Can you Imagine?' as we kept asking this question in our letters. I had no idea at the time that my sisters would face more worries and dangers than I.

Somehow the cardboard boxes full of duplicate books, letters and postcards survived. The editing process proved far more complex and complicated than ever envisaged but I managed to adapt our letters into something of a story - a story of longing for love. I only added the illustrations to fill in the gaps left after starting each letter at the top of a page. I needed more than I'd ever imagined. And then I changed the title.

Book Reviews ~

I would highly recommend this book to anyone. Its enlightening, funny and addictive reading. After reading Funnily Enough it was nice to see what the author did next. Brilliant read!!!  Sara Maughan ~ Hampshire, UK



Just a pleasure to read  

Thank you Sophie for sharing your delightful letters and wonderful insights into South Africa. I loved the pictures, although they were a bit hard to see on my tiny kindle screen. I think you have a beautiful family, funny, smart, compassionate and loving. Your horses are marvelous and your style of writing is gripping. I couldn't put my kindle down! ~  Vivienne

African Odessy 

We're really enjoying this. Since just before the Book Fair I've been reading this aloud to my daughter on my Android colour Kindle app. She is schooled at home, and wildlife facts and anecdotes are some of her favourite things. It also contains the political history recorded as it happened, from possibly the time of the greatest late 20th Century upheavals occurring in Southern Africa.

The colour illustrations are great - if you only have a b/w Kindle, download the Kindle app for your PC as well, and you can retrieve the book from your archived items to see them in colour.

We love the humour, it follows on really well from the first memoir 'Funnily Enough' - comments about 'alien invader species' and what it's like trying to sleep outdoors on a groundsheet next to a flatulent horse meant I had to keep stopping reading while my daughter rolled around laughing and making sound effects. Great stuff :)

As this one is written in the form of letters, not a diary as the first book is, and is in the genre of Travel this time rather than Christian reading, the subject of God retires gently to arm's length here, but what you do get is more of the wonderful endearing sibling exchanges and comedy pratfalls being recounted back and forth between Sophie and her friends and family in the UK. Sophie even has a visit from a BBC wildlife crew she has arranged to help find rhino, who are annoyingly elusive that day, and is harangued on the phone by a young TV executive who wants 'wild leopards, at dawn, in a tree, eating antelope'. Worth every pixel ~ Lisa Scullard, UK 

An extraordinary, funny, enchanting, book that will surprise the reader - a delicious soufflé of reading pleasure.

Sophie writes of her adventures in Africa. After a busy life in television, and recovering from debilitating illness in England, she determines on a radical change and moves from a chilly, damp British winter to the blistering heat of Southern Africa. And there she can no longer be an invalid. She plunges into the hectic life of horseback safari camps, driving trucks through rivers and desert, cooking, handling horses, killing snakes, organising the tourists and supervising the always characterful local labour. With her we meet fascinating, heart-breaking, funny, and sometimes infuriating characters. And the animals: thrilling, or entertaining encounters with elephants, aardvarks, crocodiles, antelopes, lions, leopards, hyenas, hippopotamus and rhinoceros, and a panoply of other exciting wildlife.

But the core of this wonderfully entertaining book is Sophie's correspondence with her wonderful family; Granny, Mummy and Dad, her three sisters and a bevy of children, friends, and other relations who create a web of hilarious anecdotes. Anecdotes and other adventures in love, life, dogs, cats, rabbits, donkeys, otters, and babies.

Sophie is as delicious an artist as she is a writer. The book is packed with wonderful sketches and watercolours that make these stories spring to life. A minor criticism would be that the exigencies of Kindle eBook publishing results in all the illustrations being very small. Happily I soon discovered that a little finger work can zoom to larger images, and every single one is worth expanding.

Such a light-hearted story is also pervaded by a keen awareness of reality. The struggles of a African post-Apartheid society, the deadly spread of Aids, the chaos after civil war, the problems of life for a British army wife . . . and just bringing up all those kids. These stories contain all the contradictions of life itself, but are told with such heart-warming honesty, humour and humanity.

I must admit to a personal interest in Sophie. In 1973 I produced the feature film of Arthur Ransome's SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS. One of my childhood stars was a delightful twelve-year-old Sophie. This book suggests that she grew up to be a most special woman.

A delightful book. Strongly recommended to bring a real ray of sunshine into your life. ~ Richard Pilbrow ~ Connecticut