How my African childhood inspired my second novel

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I last set foot on Zambia’s red soil more than forty years ago but the memories are as vivid as ever.

Growing up in southern Africa gave me the inspiration for my latest novel, Looking for Evelyn.

I borrowed heavily from my 1970s childhood in Zambia and from my early days as a journalist in Scotland for the book, but the central plot is all made up.

Journalist Chrissie Docherty returns to the southern Africa of her childhood and tracks down Evelyn Fielding, a woman at the centre of a scandal that shook a remote expatriate outpost in the Zambian bush in the 1970s.

As I looked at old photos and remembered the people I knew and the places where I roamed free, the colours, sounds and smells of Africa came flooding back, making the book a joy to write.

My two brothers, sister and I had an idyllic childhood in Zambia, climbing trees, exploring the vast, empty bush, making friends with local children and avoiding deadly snakes.

Here are some family snaps from that time – the colours may have faded a little but the memories have not.

Maggie Ritchie as a young girl in Zambia - FREE TO USE UGC MSN
In our garden in Chalimbana, aged around seven. You can tell it’s the early 1970s by the length of my dress!
Our bungalow – if you look carefully you can see my mum on the veranda and my little sister Mairi standing under the Flame of India tree. Dad used to pay us children five ngwee for each grasshopper we caught munching on the lawn.
Our bungalow – if you look carefully you can see my mum on the veranda and my little sister Mairi standing under the Flame of India tree. Dad used to pay us children five ngwee for each grasshopper we caught munching on the lawn.
With my brother, Iain, who had recently knocked out half his front tooth hammering a nail into a plank to make a treehouse.
With my brother, Iain, who had recently knocked out half his front tooth hammering a nail into a plank to make a treehouse.
Looking a bit peaky at my First Communion. I’d been ill for months with some mysterious tropical fever. There was no doctor in Chalimbana at the time and Mum looked after me with the aid of a nurses’ handbook.
Looking a bit peaky at my First Communion. I’d been ill for months with some mysterious tropical fever. There was no doctor in Chalimbana at the time and Mum looked after me with the aid of a nurses’ handbook.
My brother Iain, me, my brother Andrew and our little sister Mairi, the ‘baby’ of the family, in our garden.
My brother Iain, me, my brother Andrew and our little sister Mairi, the ‘baby’ of the family, in our garden.
My sister Mairi, aged five, and me aged nine – note the psychedelic 1970s dress – with our dad, John Mallon, who was setting up a teacher training college in Chalimbana for the British Council. It’s still going strong.
My sister Mairi, aged five, and me aged nine – note the psychedelic 1970s dress – with our dad, John Mallon, who was setting up a teacher training college in Chalimbana for the British Council. It’s still going strong.

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