BOOKS | 13 11
19 June 2019
Hats of to two intrepid travellers Writer Elaine Davie
B
etter known as a labour and political commentator, journalist Terry Bell and his teacher-wife, Barbara, had the audience in stitches last Saturday when they recounted some of the hilarious misadventures described in their memoir, A hat, a kayak and dreams of Dar, which was launched in 2018. The unbelievable story of the most-travelled hat in the world deserves a book of its own, but both its incredible journey and, independently, that of Terry and Barbara started in the same exotic location – a smoky bar in Morocco. The hat belonged to Terry who was a political exile from apartheid South Africa in London, where he was a student.
On a short holiday to Morocco in 1965, over a glass or two, or three, of wine with a group of other young travellers, Terry accepted a dare that would change their lives forever: to paddle a kayak from London to Tangiers. A sign of the misadventures to come, his hat was stolen by one of their convivial drinking companions, a Canadian. At the time of his blithe acceptance of the bet, neither Terry nor Barbara was even altogether sure what a kayak was, let alone how they would set about the journey. However, with the rashness of youth, he was reasonably certain it could be done without too much diiculty. In fact, why stop at Tangiers, they decided, it wouldn’t take too much longer to paddle a little further, to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Having got married in the meantime, by August 1967, they were ready to set of. In the inter-
LEFT: Terry and Barbara Bell entertained a large audience on Saturday 15 June with an account of their hilarious adventures described in their memoir, A hat, a kayak and dreams of Dar. PHOTO: Robin Malherbe BELOW: Terry and Barbara with his hat and their kayak, Amandla.
vening two years, the hat, meanwhile, had been engaged in its own adventurous travels – to Afghanistan and Iran, to Canada and back to London, where it was once more lost and found. Now it was inally in Terry’s possession again and ready to accompany them. The ibre glass kayak, named Amandla, was bought and short experimental paddles were taken, in good weather, up and down the River Thames between Richmond and Chiswick. These expeditions convinced Terry that there would deinitely not be anything to this trip – a piece of cake, in fact. With a parain stove and one pot in which Barbara would cook imaginative and nourishing meals, and a road map of Britain, the day arrived for them to set ‘sail’. Terry had placed a short press release in the paper about their intended trip and to their utter astonishment, as they arrived at the river side, they were met by a barrage of TV cameras, microphones and newspaper reporters eager to cover the story. From Hammersmith to Blackfriars, the bridges over the Thames were adorned with more photographers clicking their cameras. However, Pallo Jordan, one of their fellow-exiles in London was heard to say that he feared this was the last that would ever be seen of them. It would spoil enjoyment of the story to detail the litany of disasters that befell the couple from the word go in their bumbling attempts to reach their destination: from missing the outgoing tide of the Thames and ending up on the rocks, to inding themselves 7 km up the River Stour and heading for Canterbury, when they thought they had reached France, inding themselves in a nudist colony, to coping with locks and barges on the rivers of France, to being stranded in terrifying fog whiteouts and
lashing storms in the Mediterranean, everything that could go wrong, did. The last straw was losing their trusty compass and alarm clock overboard. And the worst of it all was that there was nowhere to hide – the media was monitoring their every move and documenting it for the public, hungry for news of the great adventure. To cut a long and hilarious story short, they didn’t reach either the original or their more ambitious destination, either by sea or, in desperation, by land. Amazingly, they didn’t have to use their life jackets once, but they did try to eat rice inadvertently soaked in parain! When the kayak was inally sold in Spain, despite the trials they had experienced together, Barbara could not help shedding a tear. After living in irst Zambia and then New Zealand for nine years, they returned to Africa, this time with two children, and took teaching jobs in Tanzania. At last they had succeeded in making their dream of ‘Dar’ come true! Fortunately, throughout their kayaking travels, Barbara had sent her parents postcards and they themselves had managed to make reelto-reel recordings of the trip. Miraculously, all these chronicles survived and when, 50-odd years later, they decided to write the story of their never-to-be-forgotten voyage, these proved to be an invaluable aide-memoire. Feeling down, or down-and-out? Buy this book. You will read it in one session and never in your life be tempted to go kayaking any further than across Walker Bay on a wind-free day.
A hat, a kayak and dreams of Dar by Terry Bell is published by Cover2Cover.
