Stories for the memoirs

White Sands Hotel, near Mombasa, Kenya, I heard a member of the Nairobi

Pipe Band (a former army piper) play In The Mood on the bagpipes.

To add injury to insult the train back to Nairobi caught fire in Tsavo

Game Park, leading to a honeymoon couple escaping the flames in their

nightclothes into the assorted wildlife, which gazed on with

astonishment. As I slept through the entire occasion, this did little

for my reputation as a journalist. It was only retrieved when I

clambered over the assorted luggage in the corridor at seven in the

morning going for a shave, thinking that the pipe band, which appeared

to play on the principle of ''first finished, round with the hat,'' had

proved more excitable than usual and had made ready for the off four

hours early.

A wee man with a portable typewriter slung over his shoulder on a

white cord was stumbling towards me, and when I expressed vulgar

surprise at his tale of the burning train, he told me: ''I'm a

journalist. You can believe me. You can read my story if your like.'' He

then unbelievably gave me his copy, the contents of which I noted on the

back of a 50-pack of Clipper cigarettes, and when he nervously asked

what I was up to I produced my press card and said: ''Snap.'' He turned

out to be a probation officer.

Although the Kafkaesque nature of this incident may be put down to the

hallucinatory effects of hearing jazz on the bagpipes, I know for sure

it happened, as I had the story coming back over BBC before the train

reached Nairobi. Furthermore I had a witness, a good mate, who once had

his boot on the late Private Speakman's neck after his drunken exploit

with the beer bottles in Korea, for which he was awarded the VC instead

of getting a bullet through the nut which was, I understand, urgently

discussed at the time.

But that's another story for the memoirs.

Alistair Campsie,

Piper's Private Hotel and Restaurant,

Union Place,

Montrose.