I arrived back in Durban on 14 May, after the usual 6 AM flight from Norwich to Amsterdam to catch the 10:30 KLM flight to Johannesburg, overnight in the City Lodge, and then to Durban on an 11 o’clock flight on Thursday. It was all straightforward. I should have gotten the earlier flight down, as I had more than enough time to get to the check-in, one learns. In Durban I picked up a car and drove to Haymarket where I had to negotiate my way into the car park at the back of the block of flats I live in. The remotes had been changed due to an incursion when one was stolen from a car.

My luck held on the flight, and I had a block of three seats to myself, so was able to doze a little bit. I watched three films. The first was a biographical musical ‘Song Sung Blue’ (2025). It ‘centers on a real-life Milwaukee couple who toured as a Neil Diamond tribute band’. Hugh Jackman was the lead but I didn’t realise that until I looked up the film for this blog.

The second was an utterly charming film set in Windhoek, Namibia. ‘My F*k Marelize’ tells of Heidi, a strong-willed mother and Marelize, her accident-prone school leaver daughter. The girl needs to learn how to ride a bike to become an au pair in the Netherlands. It can’t be described as great cinema, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and was able to understand most of it without having to resort to the English subtitles, as it is Afrikaans. The origin is a post on Facebook filmed by the mother. It shows her daughter riding, wobbling and uncertain, across a vast rugby field at the high school. She unerringly rides into the rugby post! The mother sets off to … well who knows, but as she does the mic picks up the words, ‘my fok Marelize’.

Finally, the Portuguese film ‘Dreaming of Lions’ (2024) is about Gilda, a terminally ill Brazilian woman living in Lisbon. She wants to die painlessly. She tries suicide repeatedly and, obviously unsuccessfully, then joins ‘Joy Transition International,’ an underground organization that claims to teach people how to end their lives on their own terms. It is a black comedy and I’m glad I watched it but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone or indeed anyone.

Durban at this time of year is absolutely glorious, every day has been sunny and warmish, 20-25 C. The first Thursday and Friday were a write off because of travel and then jet lag and overwhelming exhaustion. We had one wonderful electrical thunderstorm, not with much rain though.

On Sundays I drive to the beach and meet up with Russell Soby, whom I have known for over 30 years. We regularly have coffee at the Surf Life Saving Club. Assuming he outlives me, he has my South African will. I probably need to make another plan, as he is my age.

Last Friday I had the second of my 70th birthday celebrations. The first was in Norwich in March. The second, and final, iteration was in Durban at a wonderful venue called St Clements on Musgrave Road. They have a page on Facebook, so you can look it up if you wish. I really felt incredibly spoilt; despite my request that no one bring presents, people ignored this. I was given a significant number of bottles of wine, a couple of thoughtfully chosen books, and a photograph of a dear, but deceased, friend from my Swaziland days.

There were just under 40 people, including a number who had travelled for some distance. Some of the Waterford contingent, people I was at school with: Tracy, Monica, Catherine and Jackie, came down from Hilton, north of Pietermaritzburg. Derek and Lynn, my brother and his wife, flew up from Cape Town as did Tim Quinlan. Tim was also here to do some work, and he stayed with me from Wednesday to Sunday.

The partygoers included people I knew from the University of Kwazulu-Natal, friends from years ago, morning coffee drinkers, and a few people I still work with. There was a good contingent from the Health Economics and HIV AIDS Research Division (HEARD), the organisation I started at the University in 1998, past and present! I had a real sense of pride to see how well they are doing. It is hard to believe that I left Durban 13 years ago.

I wanted to keep the formal part of the evening as short as possible so all I did was welcome people, introduce two speakers, and thank everyone for coming and celebrating with me. That did not work out quite as I planned. Derek and Gavin George spoke, they had been asked, then Catherine Hunter, from Waterford days, and Richard Lyster took the microphone, and both said a few words. Everyone was extremely complimentary about my 70 years, which was touching. They also spoke briefly, entertainingly and well.

Richard reflected on the touch rugby game at the University which lasted from the mid-1980s to the 2000s. He pointed out I was a keen but unskilled player. What I lacked in ability I made up in enthusiasm. Catherine reported on a story she had been told about my first ever plane journey. This was to go to university in 1975, and I travelled with David Crush who was in my class at Waterford and his brother Jonty. After the plane had taken off, they taught me very seriously that there would be a rush to the bathrooms for people to put their pajamas on and they suggested I get ahead of the crowd and be the first to do that. Fortunately, while I was naive, with no experience of international travel, I was not that gullible or stupid.

I used the playlist that Rowan and Douglas helped me put together for the event in Norwich. It was and is extremely eclectic, ranging from country and western, to pipes and drums, via a number of hymns that I remember vividly from church services in Swaziland.

On Saturday we met some of the guests for breakfast at Glenwood bakery. I think everyone knows I enjoy writing and sending letters. To my surprise and delight, Monica brought and gave me three letters I wrote to her in 1977, during my first degree at the University of East Anglia. It was interesting to see what the younger Alan wrote about. One letter was particularly fascinating since I wrote to Monica, Catherine, Tracy, Philippa and Emily all at Waterford. It is five pages long and what I apparently did was to write and post one page to each of them. Some of it seems quite funny, but I will have to get a second opinion on that before I reproduce the humour. It was a long time ago. One of the letters was actually typed on a manual typewriter.

I arranged for enough money ‘behind the bar’ for everyone to have a welcome drink, and the food was provided by the venue. There were five dishes on offer, and all were absolutely excellent. The curry in particular was delicious. The event was documented by two of the guests and I will be posting the pictures on Dropbox once I get them all and select some.

The previous evening, I had been to the Oyster Box hotel in Umhlanga for supper with Derek and Lynn. The hotel has a curry buffet, a very Durban thing, so it was a gastronomic weekend. Now these events are done, I need to start planning for the next phase of life. That probably means finally getting the last chapter of the memoir written and starting to seriously look for a publisher.

Although it is only the end of May, there are signs of spring in Durban. The first weaver birds are busy building their nests in the fever trees in Bulwer Park. There are not too many at the moment but soon there will be an absolute cacophony when I walk under the trees. A couple of days ago I saw a tiny gecko on the floor in the flat. It is the first time I have seen one, so that was quite special. A more concerning episode was seeing a juvenile monkey, by itself, in the trees outside the flat at dusk. I am not sure if it had lost the troop or the troop had lost it, but I hope they were reunited.

The photographer for the event was an old friend, Cedric Sissing. He used to work on the campus bookshop (1981-2014) and now assists at the wonderful Ike’s Books on Florida Road. This is the venue for the best book launches and I have done there too. Adams sadly is no more but Cedric is still active and is a Durban icon. He is an excellent photographer so you will get a note in due course inviting you to go to the website to see pictures.