In this engaging memoir, Susan Read-Lobo tells the story of her childhood years in Africa, which began in 1955, when she and her family left England for a new life in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, where her father took up a post as a District Commissioner – a job he retained until the country gained independence and became Botswana in 1966.

Her early years, spent in the remote Kalahari Desert, allowed Susan to experience the region at first-hand, when it was still wild and unspoilt, and her reminiscences of the African scenery, wildlife and people that she came to know, reveal a deep and lasting affection.

But her recollections are tinged with uneasiness at the knowledge that she was part, albeit innocently, of the colonial system and by her unhappy memories of her later childhood years when she was sent away to boarding school in South Africa, making this a bitter/sweet account that perfectly expresses the mixed feelings of many who grew up in Africa during the colonial era.

Those who shared similar experiences will doubtless recognise themselves in her reminiscences whilst other readers will find them a fascinating insight into a strange and unfamiliar landscape and a bygone period of British history.