African time

Since December 2007, I have been working for First PMT in Stoke- On-Trent. It is probably the largest bus operating company in the region. Like all other transport companies in the country, safety the number one priority.

Transport companies also operate tight time schedules to try and give their passengers reliable services. Before I moved to the Potteries, I also worked on the railways in Bristol.

The time factor is very important on the railways as they are charged phenomenal amounts of money for minutes delayed. On Sunday 23rd April 1995, my Gulf Air Boeing 767 flight touched down at London's Heathrow airport on time.

I thought that the pilot had suspended the landing gear over the runway for a moment with his eye on the clock. I was impressed. Where I come from, the time concept is sometimes either not understood or adhered to.

We have what is called "African Time". African time means being chronically late! For example, if two people were to arrange for a drinks meeting at 1400 hours at the local pub, the two would agree to meet " in the afternoon". If they were then to eventually meet up finally at 1600 hours (and please mark my usage of the word "if") that meeting would be on time.

This attitude to the passing of time was with me as I headed towards London. My expectation then at the time was that this Gulf Air flight would make London Heathrow sometime that day, the pilot radioing in for permission to land.

Then someone in the control tower would thoughtfully, over a cup of tea wave us in. The flight was itself to me an introduction to another world other than Uganda. My heart raced when we were called to start boarding the aircraft about thirty minutes late. This of course was not of any inconvenience to me.I had been put in the care of another lady who was traveling ostensibly to look after me. At the time I felt that this was embarrassing.I wanted to look after myself!

Later she was to come to my aid on two occasions. I failed to work the seat belt buckle the first time, desperate to go to the toilet and a minute late and all my respect amongst the other passengers would have evaporated. The second one was at Muscat airport when I saw an escalator for the first time. What a fuss!! I am in Uganda as I write this piece.

The country has just been introduced to the delights of escalators within the last decade and the excitement about them has only just about started dying down. The first time one was introduced in The Garden City shopping mall it had to be switched off every now and then because of the human foot fall on it. With me at Muscat airport, I was like a rabbit caught in car headlights.

That lady whose help I had felt so embarrassed to accept now was gently coaxing me to "step on and step off". With an impatient line forming behind me, threatening to snowball into passengers being held on waiting airliners, and others in holding stacks over the Persian Gulf, all on account of me failing to get onto these moving stairs, I stepped on to the escalator! One tiny step for me.

Looking back now, I laugh at that episode. How ridiculous I must have looked. Recently I was using one of the escalators at Seven Sisters underground and I hardly noticed it was there despite its length and height. And when my poor mother comes to visit me she finds me a tedious timekeeper as I narrow down to the last minutes about our intended itinerary for a given day.

Journey's beginning

I have on so many occasions been asked questions about my country of origin, Uganda, what it is like and how the political situation is at the moment.

Having lived in the United Kingdom for over a decade now, one finds that clear concise answers become more difficult.

Unless one is actively engaged, the danger is that slowly these topics start getting hard to articulate.

There are however stories that we who have made The United Kingdom and England especially our home by choice that never fade.

Those stories that we the immigrant population hope that we will be able to tell to our grandchildren with clarity as if the events being described only happened in the recent past.

On occasions, I have been asked about my first impression of the United Kingdom when I first visited. In this age of mass migration, when the population of the UK has grown, the new arrivals have had varying thoughts of their new home. I wonder what the Vikings thought when they first arrived on these shores.

I can only imagine the thoughts of those poor Jamaicans arriving on The Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 to a country that was overwhelmingly white. And yet this seems only yesterday.

Lenny Henry the comedian has wondered on one of his shows why his father opted for Dudley instead of Kingston, Jamaica.

The Irish immigrants to England in the 19^th Century probably did not find the UK much of a difference with the weather.

But they helped with the expansion of industry in this country. The late 20^th Century saw large migrations from Africa many of whom came here for casual labour. Some came to study and ended up settling here.

Now with the expansion of the European Union, the immigrants to this country are not necessarily coming from far flung places but right on the door step of The UK. For centuries this country has welcomed immigrants all with different stories of what they thought of their adopted motherland. This is mine.

Rick Steves the renown travel writer once wrote: "Many Americans board a plane for an overseas destination without fully realising that they are flying into a completely different culture.

"Some experience culture shock; a psychological disorientation caused by immersion in a place where people do things differently and see things differently."

That fully sums up my first visit to the UK in 1995, a young impressionable man from a comfortable African family. My whole family apart from me had at the time had a British Education in some form.

My father, an Anglican priest had been at Birmingham Christian College, Selly Oak. My Mother too had also been to some Christian instruction college near Farnham in Surrey. My sister was at college in London and my two brothers had been to University at Queens in Belfast and Aberystwyth in Wales. So, on this basis and from the stories they told of the United Kingdom, I felt pretty knowledgeable about the country.

Saturday 22^nd April 1995 was a cool day as I prepared to fly out of Uganda. I had been invited to visit by two families. The first one(Diane and Harold) lived in Winchester, Hampshire and the other family (Jimmy and Nadine) live in St Johns Isle Of Man.

The two families had their daughters working as volunteers in Uganda. The excitement was almost tangible. For my family, they felt that at long last they could talk about the London "tube" without me looking on with my jaw falling through the floor.

On my part, this day was the culmination on a number of events. Uganda at the time was still reeling from decades of political turmoil. For one to acquire a passport was next to impossible.

However, my father had managed to get mine in a record two weeks. Needless to say he spent hours waiting at offices and cajoling officers for their signatures only to be told that the next signature would be got from another officer across the county the size of Cheshire and Staffordshire combined.

With the dire road situation, that meant a two hour journey at best. He still managed to get the coveted book and I will never forget the smile on his face as he handed it to me. At that moment, it felt like he had just given me the freedom to roam the globe!

At the airport I was getting slightly irritated by my family who had come out in force to see me off. They kept giving me tips on what to do when and how. What to expect when I got on to that Gulf Air plane.

My father kept on checking to see whether I still had my passport. He kept looking at the visa to make sure it was in date. It never seemed ending and I just wanted to get away from everyone and start on my adventure.

The airport was full of people who had come to see loved ones off. This used to be a common practice in Uganda before travel became common place. The airport would be heaving with people who had come to see loved ones fly off to other countries. Entebbe airport could have had one flight in the day but the lobby and the restaurants would be full. It was a day out! Suddenly, our flight was called to start checking in! My adventures had begun. And I was getting away from these lot...............