The Prince and me

I hope Prince William enjoys studying Kiswahili. I certainly did. In my mid-thirties I jacked in a job as a binman, did two A levels in a year, passed both, then studied Kiswahili for three years at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Bloomsbury as part of an African Studies degree.

I went to all that trouble because I was fed up with being rained on and broke all the time. A university degree, I imagined, would be a passport to a job, if I wanted one, that paid more for doing less, and doing it indoors. At the time, however, I saw going to university as ‘selling out’ and was slightly ashamed. I justified it to myself and others with the expression ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ – a saying which I still don’t fully understand, to be honest.

Entering the Swahili classroom at SOAS for the first time, I was late.