But for Alexander McCall Smith, many of us might never have heard of Botswana. But if we have read any of the 21 novels in the ‘Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency’, we have breathed its air and sighed alongside its citizens.
McCall Smith is a prolific and disciplined writer. Like Trollope or Balzac he writes his two or three thousand words a day, come rain, come shine. Other writers have derided this kind of production regime. It does, however, get results.
Like a Western or a crime book, the Botswana books are not so much about the ostensible unravelling of a mystery or the settlement of a cattle dispute as about getting to know the inhabitants of this little African country. We enjoy their concern for their shop-keeping or their efforts to keep ageing cars on the road. We like the secretary’s efforts to handle office procedure and her attachment to the qualifications she gained in a secretarial college. We like the traffic problems and the wide open roads. We feel we know Botswana and we may even feel we should like to live there.
The key-note of the Detective Agency books is compassion. It would not be extravagant to mention the name of Chaucer in this context. McCall Smith observes and accepts. He sees the positive and endearing aspects of his characters and understands the shifts and ruses that they are sometimes driven to. No wonder these novels have been translated into 46 languages. No wonder sales have amounted to 20 million. They are ideal reading on a summer afternoon or in a nerve-racking lockdown; they also help us understand that whether we are black or white, digitally sophisticated or marooned in the typewriter age, we have human nature in common.
We have much to thank this former professor of medical law for. He has introduced us to Mrs Precious Ramotswe and her secretary – and of course her teapot. We have met her clients and we have taken our way along the dusty roads of Africa that many of our fellow human beings know so well.
WOVEN SEVEN
A humdinger of a church website introduces the viewer to seven churches in outer Nottingham describing themselves as Woven. They are a diverse collection of parishes – large, small, historic, brand-new, Alpha-supporting, Green awarded, traditional, fun-loving. They unite under the slogan ‘Calling Nottingham to the wonder and way of Jesus’. Go for the ‘Watch’ section of the website to see more
ALSTON CHARGE-POINT
The Rev Mark Nash-Williams has six Alston Moor parishes to look after with a population of 3,000 scattered over 130 square miles in the North Pennines. He is the Bishop’s adviser on the environment and drives a Nissan Leaf. He recently attracted the attention of the local press as he commended the only public charging-point in Alston.
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