Two in the Bush

Autumn, 1966. In south London, Burt Saunders, a middle-aged school teacher, responds to an advertisement in The Observer. Newly-independent Zambia is recruiting teachers. Within months, he and his wife are on a plane to Africa. He is brimming with excitement; she is laden down with foreboding. A Land Rover picks them up at the airstrip, drives them deep into the bush and finally dumps them and their pristine, white suit cases in a place called Lubwa. Lubwa is not on the map. It is six miles on from Chinsali, but they can’t find Chinsali on the map either. They are 70 miles on dirt tracks from the nearest place that is on the map. There are no shops, no electricity and no other Europeans. Confronted with a shell of a house to live in, and discovering that the school where he was contracted to teach had yet to be built, Burt wonders why they told him in London to be sure to pack a dinner jacket...