Columns & Blogs

Most of us are relatively familiar with the horrors of this abhorrent trade in Guyana from c1630-1834 (and which I described in 'Wild Coast'). Less familiar perhaps are the small liberties that survived slavery.

Every now and then, I come across a town with a wonderful antique feel. Take New Amsterdam, in Guyana. Even my hotel felt like a relic from an earlier age. The Hotel Aster was built like a clipper, and had hardwood decks and a thick cream hull. Inside, it was so dark and cramped that I had to wriggle my way to my room.

This is Karanambo, deep in the interior of Guyana. It's been home to the McTurk family since 1922. Back then, the Rupununi was still an odd place to settle. It took as long to get to Georgetown as it took for Townies to get to London. There was no doctor, no government, and still a handful of tribes who’d shower you in arrows. But Tiny McTurk didn’t seem to mind.

Hardship has been a great innovator, forcing humans to make sport out of whatever they have.

The Afghans play a form of polo-cum-rugby with a dead sheep; in Stawell (Australia), I remember an annual running race (the 'Stawell Gift') where the prize was a pig; in rural England there are violent games with big 'wheels' of cheese and sides of bacon.

Only occasionally do writers describe their exotic encounters overseas. Although famously interested in prostitutes, writers like Leigh-Fermor (Greece), Leonard Woolf (Ceylon) and Burton (everywhere) never went into the detail. Nor did the great homesexual writers like Thesiger (Arabia) and Chatwin (West Africa).

Last month, the European Space Agency (ESA) met in Naples and agreed to spend 10 billion euros over the next five years. This puts ESA into the big leaugue, just behind NASA but ahead of China.

This is all that remains of Fort Nassau, on the Berbice River, Guyana. Only one 18th century description of this building remains, from a Dutch traveller called Hartsinck.

In "Beschrijving van Guiana of de Wilde Kust", he’d described a structure 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, which had served as a church, a storehouse, the government, and the home of the ‘corp de guarde’.

The tragic death of Jacintha Saldanha in London yesterday (following the Australian radio Hoax) is a reminder how much we value our nurses. Londoners are deeply upset by this news. It's also a reminder that our nurses come from all over the world, making an invaluable contribution to the NHS.

You can find them all over the former British Empire; clean, sparse and functional. They don't even differ much from Kenya to Sri Lanka. You can wake up in Nkarta Bay (Malawi) and happily believe that you're in Bartica (Guyana), where this picture was taken.

Bartica is a typical specimen; utilitarian 1950s furniture, and run by two elderly la

This is the tomb of a Dutch planter at Peerboome (or 'Pear Tree') in Berbice, Guyana. The tombstone was probably made in Europe during the planter's life, with only the dates left blank.