Description

As a young child I was captivated by a shabby old book filled with hand-drawn pictures, erratically typed text, and a cover made of cardboard and wall paper. It was all tightly bound together with string but had seen better days. It was a particular treasure of my mother's.

She had spent most of her early childhood in Tanganyika, which is now known as Tanzania. Her father was the Assistant District Commissioner of the area, a British public servant administrator from a time when Tanganyika was a British colony, and her mother was a nurse. Her mother (my grandmother) had written, hand-illustrated and bound the little book. It is four delightful tales of four adventurous siblings from what was, in many ways, a golden era of colonial East Africa, around the end of World War II.

The images and text are almost exactly as my grandmother made them (except for the occasional grubby finger print, several of which could well be my own). The book has been reprinted as a gift to my mother (who once swam with mermaids), and to share these wonderful little stories with the wider world.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.