A MONKEY'S WEDDING

"A fascinating, sweeping tale of one extended family's roots and lives in wild places and tumultuous times."

Tony Park, best-selling author of Far Horizon.

Every family has its stories. Ours just happen to involve empires, 1820 Settlers at the Cape, 1890 Pioneers in Rhodesia. War heroes. International sportsmen. A roll call of colourful characters who chased gold, dug diamonds, and brought sugar farming to Africa.

That's the 'heroic' version.

But the reality is messier and even more interesting.

Bad bets and lost fortunes, surviving shipwrecks and land-mines and German grandmothers, suing a Zulu king, a fishing trip hijacked by 29 hippos, being coached by Barry Richards and Greer Stevens, a murdered housemaid, shopping trips with an Uzi, serial boarding school floggings, going to church with Miss World Penny Ray, playing rugby against the All Blacks and British Lions, negotiating with a despotic Zimbabwean president, and more amazingly true stories. So I'm not even the hero of my own life story!

'A Monkey's Wedding' tells the true story of my family's seven-generation journey through southern Africa, set against the rise and retreat of empire. What happened to those who emigrated to the UK and Australia? And what happened to those who stayed behind? And why one cousin even returned with a young family from Australia to Zimbabwe.

Think of it as a 200-year South Africa and Rhodesia life story, choc-full of true stories of Southern African pioneer history and African frontier history. But 'A Monkey's Wedding' is more than just my colonial Africa personal story ... there are probably universal similarities to your family, with the themes of adventure and adaptation, and having the balls to go and find a better life on the other side of the world.

If you enjoyed the writing of Peter Godwin and Alexandra Fuller, this memoir could be for you.

With 24 pages of rare, some never-published, photos. Plus maps of South Africa and Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe showing areas of activity, and brief history timelines of both countries to help put everything in context.