DIARY
Now that I live abroad, coming to England for a visit makes me wary. If I allow myself to be lulled by the cosiness of familiarity, I get suddenly thrown by a disconcerting innovation or attitude. A young Ugandan is looking after me, help- ing me in my wheelchair. The immigration official looked with reasonable suspicion at a smudge on Roland's visa, just where it said for how many months it was valid. He spun the interrogation out, but with heavy British patience let us in. I felt at ease. The customs man was different. 'Bit of bother you had there did you? Now, you say this car is yours. Company car is it? No? We checked it you know, while you had your bit of bother. Records say it belongs to a company.' I explained that I had bought it recently from the company he named. 'You write books do you? That's more in my colleague's line. He says.he knows your name. So you wouldn't be doing anything silly would you?' He was far from being rude, almost friendly. 'I'd get a tax disc as soon as possible, though it's no affair of mine.' But I have never felt so watched.
At least people have given up telling one how much their houses are worth and they have stopped grumbling about the telephone. They persist, however, in attacking whatever is new. Sky television seems to me to provide an admirable news service, which must be a healthy begin- ning. When commercial television began everyone sneered. BBC2, Channel 4, the Independent suffered the same ridicule. The problems of the Channel Tunnel stem from this dislike of endeavour. The content of Sky's entertainment channel may be worse than mediocre, but technically it is far better than any French station.
If that thought strikes a Panglossian note, I have plenty of grumbles to make up for it. I needed some brake fluid for my car. I tried three or four service stations in Hammersmith and Chiswick. No luck. I was heading west from London and was sure I would find some on the M4. The girl in the garage shop gave Roland a can of ordinary motor oil. It was a Saturday, so the garage itself was shut. These lucrative motorway concessions should be taken away from the pedlars of junk food and be given to some organisations who are concerned with motorists, The weather being so remarkably un- British, I have been rambling through London in my new Squirrel, the latest version of the four-wheel-drive wheel-chair designed by Jeremy Fry. Its range is now eight miles or more. Madmen seem to be in QUENTIN CREWE
charge of altering pavements to help the disabled get around. Again and again I have sailed up a flattened curb, travelled two hundred yards and found an eight-inch drop at the next crossing. Getting across the space by South Kensington station is a nightmare; the top of Sloane Street is the same and to go from Knightsbridge to Piccadilly requires the nerve of Nigel Man- sell. I swear to you I found the pavements of Bogota more accessible than those of London.
Roland has never left Africa before, He had only been out of Uganda once, for ten days. At first he was dazzled by almost everything. 'Can there be any stone re- maining in England?' he asked as he looked at London's buildings. Unfailing water and electricity, undented cars, a fairground, escalators, Harrods, 'a whole section just for pens, so many, many pens', InterCity trains — all such things were astounding. But he soon got used to them, just as I had in Uganda soon accepted the ravages of the two dictators who ruled Uganda for all but the last three years of Roland's life. Now if I ask what has struck him most he says — 'the people'. What about them? With his usual courtesy he mentions only good things. 'They are so polite, ready to help. They are not nosy. In Uganda people are forever wanting to know what everyone is doing.' Pressed to think of bad things, Roland is horrified by our lack of family and neighbourly feeling. He refuses to believe that some of my children have never met my much older half-brother. He looks equally incredulous when I tell him that the woman in the flat opposite is relieved rather than offended by our limiting our intercourse to a short 'Good morning'. Some of the good things have an odd way of somehow turning into bad ones. Bazungus, as Roland calls white people, 'tell the truth, when in Uganda we tell lies very easily. You are too frank. How could that man say his brother is gay? In Kampala if a man said that, it would be big news. Here no one minds, it is not good.' On some days he says it is good to be punctual. On others he complains that our bustle and fuss are intolerable. Our different brands of logic often clash. 'There are no oranges this morning for your orange juice.' Why didn't you tell me yesterday?' Yesterday there were oranges.' There are days when we look at each other and wonder whether the gap between different cultures can ever be firmly and finally bridged. The most reas- suring aspect of Roland's visit is that he says he has detected no flickers of racism. It is true that he is tall and elegant and has a smile that is irresistible. More to the point, I think, is that he has in his make-up no trace of racism or resentment of white people. It may be that expecting no ill will, he engenders none. It is a notion that many minorities might ponder.
Igot a letter this week addressed to Quintin Krue. I looked at it with distaste. Ever since I have had my name it has given me visual pleasure. My original surname was Dodds — a solid Scots name meaning a signpost. I always imagined doddery old men pointing out the way across the moors. When my name was changed for inheritance reasons, I liked it for its look on a page. It was far easier to write and the pattern of the letters was pleasing. When I became a journalist, someone congratu- lated Lord Beaverbrook for having coined so satisfactory a pseudonym. I think that we like many words for their appearance. How lumpy a pheasant would be, were it spelt fezunt. Think of the different effect on the emotions between Porsche, the hideous yuppie car, and the name Portia. I have long envied the Chinese and Japanese the extra dimension that calligraphy gives to their poetry. I am sure no one would have invited me to write these jottings were I still called Dodds.
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