The Snake & The Tiger
Memoirs of an Adventurous and Travel Filled Life
by
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Not feeling very well I went to the company’s doctor, a lovely young, good looking Irish man. I had pain in my chest. The nurse helped me out of my blouse and brassiere. I quickly covered my breasts. “My dear, Doctor Mark will have to look at you!” Blushing profusely going all hot and bothered I meekly agreed. I could not look at the Doctor’s face. “How many children have you got Mrs. Armstrong?” he asked. “Why doctor. I have none” I replied. “Shame on you. You are too much of a woman not to have children!” he replied. “And what do I do if they don’t come doctor?” I enquired. “You mean to say you do want them?” “Of course we do!” “Well, let me check you!” “Oh no you won’t, you are too young and too nice looking!” “OK then, I will send my older brother to check you!” When the older brother came I nearly passed out, he was better looking than his brother and with mischievous twinkling eyes. Reluctantly I took off my clothing and since I was so terribly embarrassed covered up my face with the pillow. Once the examination ended I had to stay still for a while until I settled down. I was covered with red blotches all over my chest and face. The doctor could not understand why I had not conceived since other than a slight prolapse of the womb all was fine with me. I was strong and healthy. Apparently only the breast glands were swollen.
When I got home Jack wanted to know what had happened and when I told him he wanted to have a look and see what the doctor had seen. When I refused saying that he was not a doctor, he kept on reminding me he was my husband but no matter what he said I was adamant………
……It was
By
……..One evening while I was on my own, poor Lancer started to bark ferociously and then whine in great earnest. This was definitely not the usual barking and growling. I got up to investigate and realized he was outside Lyana's bedroom window. I distinctly heard sounds of footsteps and running on the gravel around the house. Suddenly there was a thunderous noise which left nothing to my imagination, bodies crashing against my front door in a joint effort to push it down. I rushed to the window, stuck my head between the iron bars and shouted "Taka nini?". On hearing my voice I realized the stupidity of my action. Thoughts, dreadful thoughts, went through my mind. I had not come to Kenya to be killed. I had forgotten my gun as I rushed to the wardrobe to pick up a wooden clothes hanger, left my bedroom, locking it behind me and rushed to Lyana's, locking it too. Then I started to blow the whistle and scream like I had never done before. Soon I heard from outside more whistles blowing, running steps and shouts. The Home Guard had come to my rescue! I was in no state to be left alone.....
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About the Book
Ana Lydia was born in the late 1920’s in the Fortress Colony of Gibraltar. The eldest daughter of a well-to-do middle-class merchant family, she enjoyed a carefree childhood taking dancing and music classes in a very traditional and conservative home. At sixteen she met Jack, a young Englishman, despite his coming from a different background, she married him in 1949. They flew to
Ana relates her adventures and experiences, sometimes sad but always interesting and mainly funny, encountered in the many countries where she accompanied her husband, first in Nairobi, during the MauMau uprising and where, after recuperating from polio, she found herself entertaining the troops under the command of General Sir George Erskine. In
About the Author
That Ana Lydia Armstrong of mixed Mediterranean parentage, born in the colony fortress of Gibraltar in the early twentieth century married Englishman Jack, an employee of a British Company established in Gibraltar, was an act that was seriously discouraged by the British colonial masters.
This was only the beginning of the complications which was to beset their lives on the one hand but on the other make it an exciting experience which they shared in postings around the world.
Ana had been brought up in a middle class merchant family. In the
By leaving the motherland with the Company Jack carried an officer class status which made him part of that British elite. Liaisons with the natives were discouraged, it being considered they created complications. A quick posting away from the Rock did not break Jack’s emotional ties with Ana and so the couple were soon married and being shuffled around the world into lands with very contrasting cultures.
Ana was able to break from the pretentious restrictions of the Company club culture to mix with the locals. This frowned upon activity gave her increasing scope for teaching her professional Spanish dancing and development of exercise routines.
The social life which developed with these activities took the couple into all strata of the many different cultures. It is here where the essence of the story matures into what is a fascinating insight into the world of the accepted and the unaccepted, the haves and the have-nots of the mid-twentieth century. The story has seldom been told as honestly with intellectual naivity.