The Expatriate centres on me and my young family's experience in Malawi. However, the first part gives insights into life as a private soldier in the British Army. That culminates in Aden when the British were being pushed out. For many, the army can be a salvation.  

 

It moves to the fight to enter, and the subsequent experience of, higher education: studying town planning for five years at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

 

The book includes a tribute to magical north-west Cumbria (Ch 10). I was in my late 20s. There, I managed to combine town planning and historic town centre renewal with new-build housing and conservation funding. It inspired my first technical journal paper. Ten years later, I would have stayed.

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​But wanderlust took hold! Eventually London (with Taylor Woodrow) then internationally, in Malawi, Tanzania, New York (with the UN), Ethiopia, Kenya and finally Uganda.

 

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​​The contemplative picture is from Addis Ababa in 2023, leading a GGGI study tour for four Ugandan secondary city mayors and their physical planners, to GGGI Ethiopia. The more inquisitive version is in a coffee bar in Kampala's Acacia Mall in August 2024, after I retired! ​ (The script writing was from an earlier moment.)

 

The professional side of The Expatriate experience is captured​​

in City Management in Developing Counties (see the tab below).