On a roll of real charm in Botswana

Robert Oakeshott

'would like to begin with Ernest Bevin's famous self-addressed exclamation: 'What a turn-up for the book!' It was 1945. He had just been appointed foreign secretary in Mr Attlee's postwar government, prompting him to reflect on his very different background as a milk delivery boy in the Devonshire village of Wiveliscombe. Something of the same astonished surprise would surely have been the predictable reaction of a literary agent if given bare summaries of Alexander McCall Smith and of his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series — and then hearing about their amazing success in America. With the fifth and latest in the series due to he published, total US sales of the first three alone have already gone beyond one million. In the UK, where the cult of the author's

unforgettable private eye, Precious Ramotswe, seems to have started to take off rather later, sales figures have gone well beyond a highly respectable 100,000. Film rights have also been sold. What is going on?

About McCall Smith a bare summary tells us that he is a Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh, is now in his mid-fifties. and was formerly a legal academic at the University of Botswana in southern Africa. About Precious Ramotswe, the key facts are that she is still, just, on the right side of 40, that she experienced a brief and tragically disastrous marriage as a young woman, losing her baby within less than a week, and that before setting herself up in business at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, she was successfully employed as a book-keeper. The capital she needed, both to start the business and to buy herself a modern house, came from the sale of most of the substantial cattle herd built up over his lifetime by the saintly Obed Ramotswe, her beloved 'Daddy'. Precious, an only child whose mother had been run over by a train in infancy, was devoted to him in his lifetime, and has remained so.

About the setting of the agency, it is enough to say that it is in Gaborone, the capital of the southern African republic of Botswana which, before it gained its independence from the British in 1966, was the Bechuanaland Protectorate. It consists quite largely of the Kalahari desert, The rainfall is sparse and it is very sparsely populated. With a surface area

larger than that of France, its population in the latest census was counted as approximately 1.7 million. Its cattle population is regularly more numerous than its people. The latest estimate, though it may not fully take account of last year's serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth, was around 2.5 million. A good measure of its aridity are government stocking rate rules which specify that 35 acres must be allowed per each large stock unit (i.e. for units of cattle — as opposed to, say, goats).

A more or less truthful literary agent's flyer for Professor McCall Smith and his detective fiction series before both achieved their success might, I suppose, have read. 'Medical Law Professor invents lady detective in her late thirties to help the fight against crime in an arid and very sparsely populated African country.'

But before going any further I must declare an interest. I worked in Botswana with Patrick van Rensburg — who was later a recipient of the unofficial Nobel peace prize — for the first five years after independence in 1966. It was one of the most stimulating, challenging and enjoyable spells of my working life. In my more vainglorious moments I sometimes see myself as an old Kalahari hand, though I spent no more than a week in what might be called the 'proper' desert — and that in the comfortable accommodation of the Kalahari Arms at Ghanzi.

To return to Precious Ramotswe. What is emphasised throughout is her attachment to the 'old' Botswana values and ways of living. Among the former is a readiness to work hard when necessary and always to show respect for older people. Among the latter the author regularly highlights her fondness for 'bush' tea — as I remember it, a dark red-brown in colour, made from the leaves of a local plant which grows wild in the Western Cape and is said to be more a 'broom' than a tea. It has about as much similarity to the genuine article as 'bush boarding' has to the 'normal' dormitories in Africa's rural secondary schools. (The latter consist of informal 'self-build' bivouacs on the school periphery.) Precious proclaims herself a patriot of both Botswana and indeed of most of black Africa — always excepting Nigeria — and is an unashamed royalist. As well as the British Queen, she admires

the King of Lesotho, because he was a direct descendant of Moshoeshoe I, who had saved his country from the Boers and had been a good, wise man (and modest too; had he not described himself as the flea in the blanket of Queen Victoria?). She admired the old King of Swaziland, King Sobhuza II, who had 141 wives all at the same time. She admired him in spite of his having all those wives, which, after all, was a traditional approach to life: she admired him because he loved his people and because he consistently refused the death penalty to be exacted, always — with only one exception in his long reign, a most serious case of witchcraft murder — granting mercy at the last minute. (What sort of man, she wondered, could coldly say to another who was begging for his life: no, you must die?) There were other kings and queens, of course, not just African ones. There was the late Queen of Tonga who was a very special queen because she was so fat. Mma Ramotswe had seen a picture of her in an encyclopaedia and it had covered two pages, so wide was the queen.

In that respect, indeed, Precious resembles the late Queen Salotte, even if rather less so. 'She was proud of being a traditionally built African lady, unlike those terrible stick-like creatures one saw in advertisements.' However, readers should not for a moment think of her as a cosy, if frumpish, women's institute matron in premature middle age. She has a clear grasp of what she sees as Botswana's contemporary political and moral realities and values. She has the greatest possible respect for 'Sir Seretse Khama, paramount chief of the Bamangwato, founding president of Botswana and gentleman'. And then, most surprising had it been written about anywhere else in Africa, the author goes on:

The last of these attributes was perhaps the most important in Mma Ramotswe's eyes. A man could he a hereditary ruler or an elected president but not a gentleman and that would show in his every deed. But if you had a leader who was a gentleman with all that this meant, then you were lucky indeed. And Botswana had been very lucky in that respect, because all three of her presidents had been good men, gentlemen, who were modest in their bearing as a gentleman should be.

But, again, one should not mistake these admirable attitudes as the outer cover of an inner core of 'mush'. On the contrary, this traditionally built and nearly middleaged African woman with no professional qualifications, who had emerged from school with no more than the equivalent of 0-levels, greatly enjoys puncturing the arrogance and condescension of professional men. Early in the first volume, having just deposited a cheque covering the proceeds of the sale of most of Obed's cattle herd, she is talking to a lawyer at Barclays Bank of Botswana.

'You can buy a house with that,' said the lawyer, 'and a business.'

'I am going to buy both of those.'

The lawyer looked interested.

'What sort of business? A store? I can give you advice, you know.'

'A detective agency.'

After the lawyer has 'looked blank. and said 'there are none of those', Precious rejoins that she already knows that and will have to start from scratch. The lawyer winces and says, 'It is easy to lose money in

business, especially when you don't know anything about what you are doing.' After which he stares at her hard and goes on, 'Especially then, and anyway can women be detectives?'

'Why not?' said Mma Ramotswe. She had heard that people did not like lawyers and now she thought she could see why. This man was so certain of himself, so utterly convinced. And how dare he say that about women, when he didn't even know his zip was half undone?

'Women are the ones who know what is going on,' she said quietly. 'A woman sees more than a man sees. That is well known. So when people see a sign saying -No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency", what will they think? They will think those ladies will know what is going on.'

The lawyer stroked his chin. 'Maybe.' 'Yes,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'Maybe,' adding, 'Your zip. I think you may not have noticed.'

About the agency's actual cases, the author tells us that

after a slow start [Mma Ramotswe] was rather surprised to find that her services were in considerable demand. She was consulted about missing husbands, about the creditworthiness of potential business partners, and about suspected fraud by employees. In almost every case she was able to come up with at least some information for the client; when she could not, she waived her fee, which meant that virtually nobody who consulted her was dissatisfied.

In fact, of the cases selected for inclusion Mma Ramotswe solves every one. In some her role seems almost as much that of agony aunt as private eye. But Precious is no dock leaf. In all, she has to overcome one or more, always male, antagonists. In two she is exposed to a risk of serious danger.

It should, however, be noted that though each of these five shortish volumes are of roughly equal length — at a guess about 60,000 words — more than half of the cases selected for inclusion come in the first volume. But there is plenty of noncasework material to sustain readers' interest, or anyway that of this reviewer. That is because we are not dealing with a fiction series with just one totally dominant role. In the language of casting directors, there are three other good, adult parts and two more — a semi-crippled young woman and a male apprentice mechanic — which would surely be acceptable to young actors. The three adults who have semistarring parts alongside Mma Ramotswe are two ladies and a gentleman. There is Mma Makutsi, who comes to the agency having scored 97 per cent in the final exams of the Botswana Secretarial School. She goes on to become, as well as the agency's assistant detective, the assistant manager of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the founder-owner of the Kalahari Typing School for Men. The second is Mma Silvia Potokwane, the redoubtable matron in charge of an 'orphan farm' just outside Gaborone. The starring gentleman is Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, Master Mechanic and owner of Tiokweng Road Speedy Motors. Mrs Potokwane is in some ways even stronger than Precious Ramotswe. She devotes her enormous energy very largely to the welfare of her orphan farm charges. When it comes to mending, without payment, the pump at the farm's bore-hole or its minibus — and indeed to the adoption of two of her orphan inmates — Mr J. L. B. Matekoni is as putty in her hands. Despite the tragedy of her earlier marriage, Mma Ramotswe becomes engaged to him in the first volume.

Happy thoughts as well as, for example, coffee enemas are increasingly advised these days in self-help books for cancer patients. Specific examples are not always offered. But I feel entitled to be sure that even the most jaded readers will find that the Precious Ramotswe series is a wonderful source. For those who don't know what I mean, I will quote just one from F. C. Burnand's now almost forgotten novel with that title.

'The pincers in an earwig's tail don't bite.'

The series is written with a marvellously droll gravity. I suspect that the author was on a roll for much of the time of writing it, but not at Botswana's expense. Instead, it is because he so much enjoys the country and its people. Does he paint a true and realistic picture? For older readers like me, yes. There is indeed some evidence that older readers have been the big buyers in America.

In conclusion, in case there are any readers who choose not to follow such matters all that closely, the extraordinary success of Botswana's economy and its exemplary multi-party system should perhaps be highlighted. Powered by diamond mining, which has now easily overtaken the output and sales of South Africa and of all other countries, Botswana's economic growth rate was top of the international table in the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, because of the stability of its democratic and multi-party political system, inward private investment has been strong. All that has helped to make possible Precious Ramotswe's world and does much to justify her admiration for Seretse Khama, its chief architect. Today the country's main problem is Aids. However, with help already secured from America's Gates foundation, and women of the strength of Mma Potokwane to take charge of 'orphan farms', the chances of overcoming this terrible calamity within a tolerable time frame are almost certainly better than elsewhere in Africa.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency; Tears of the Giraffe; Morality for Beautiful Girls; The Kalahari Typing School for Men; The Full Cupboard of Life. By Alexander McCall Smith. Polygon, £8.99 each.