My Account
Cliff Taylor went from a Kaipara farm to an African war zone, and from the Auckland Star to the BBC World Service in London. Now he has settled back home in Leigh and has published his third novel, Swimming To Paris. He talks with George Driver about his experiences travelling the globe.
You see the best and the worst of humanity in those places. Often the people who’ve been through the worst times are the nicest people — the most generous people. But working day after day with your life in danger takes its toll on everybody in some way. When I was working in Kampala in Uganda, you knew that foreigners would be targets. There were bombs going off constantly in Kampala. Hand grenades were being thrown into crowded restaurants – anywhere there were foreigners. You felt like you were a target. So there was a constant undercurrent of fear. It can make you feel alive and at your peak, but can also be quite paralysing if you let it get to you. It’s about how you deal with fear.
I grew up on a small farm in Makarau and went to school in Warkworth. I was an avid reader. I would read anything. Even before I went to school I’d be reading the back of cereal packets. Just anything. At school I’d always be frustrated with teachers thinking I’d copied my work from somewhere else. But when a careers guidance counsellor came to our school, the only job he mentioned that I had any interest in was journalism. So I enrolled at ATI, now AUT, and did a six-month journalism course. I ended up getting a job at the Auckland Star when I was just 17. But I think I was too young. It felt too early to be beginning the nine-to-five routine, so I only lasted 11 months before leaving to do a bit of exploring. I ended up travelling for 15 years, mostly through Europe, Asia, Central America and Africa. It became a real obsession. For a few years I would work for three months at the Mountain Scene newspaper in Queenstown and spend the rest of the year travelling. I must have done about 50-odd jobs along the way. I also did some freelance work and would write travel articles for the Sunday Star-Times. My OE inspired my first novel, The Freedom Junkies. Most New Zealanders have had that sort of experience and had those challenges open their eyes to the world.
I also had a real passion for India. I’ve been there three times and once rode around the country for six months on a classic 1940s-style Enfield motorbike. It was incredible. There were religious riots going on the whole time, and I headed right up to the Himalayas and down to the rave party scene in Goa. Afterwards, I came back and stayed with my brother in Port Chalmers in Dunedin, and while I was wandering around Dunedin with India still in my head, I just had to get it down and write it. My second book, Instant God, is loosely based on that experience, so it’s set half in India and half in Dunedin — the images and memories of India mixed with the setting of Port Chalmers. It’s a great contrast.
Later I ended up in Africa. I was living with my girlfriend in Barcelona teaching English. She got a job on a refugee project in Uganda, so I followed her out there, not knowing what I was going to do. But I started freelancing. There were so many amazing things going on around me. It was a pretty disturbing time. The United States embassy in Nairobi had just been bombed and there was a lot of tension in East Africa. So there was a lot to write about and I started writing for anyone who would take it really.
The kids my girlfriend was working with had come out of war zones and some were forced into becoming child soldiers. It was mentally draining work. My girlfriend would be in tears at night after working all day with these kids. But then we said to each other: ‘It’s no good to them if we are weeping and feeling sorry for ourselves’. You just have to harden up really and do your job. But it’s hard sometimes with the things you see. But these people live in these conflict zones and they find a way to cope. So we found a way to cope, too. Then I got a fabulous job working for an NGO in Uganda. They’d send me around different projects to take photos and write reports. The things I was seeing were just extraordinary. We were going into places where you knew there were child soldiers right there, and they were raiding refugee camps constantly, killing people and taking children away to make into soldiers.
Through that experience I ended up writing for The Independent, working as their Ugandan correspondent. It was the highlight of my career. It had always been my favourite paper in the world. Then I returned to London, and that’s how I got a job at the BBC World Service, working as a senior producer in their Africa department.
By going to Uganda, I leap-frogged in my career to a position that would have taken years and years otherwise, by being the go-to person in a certain area. Some journalist once said: ‘You’ve got to choose your war’. A place where there’s enough happening to interest the world, but not a lot of competition covering the area. And that chance has shaped my whole life and career.
I wrote my latest book, Swimming To Paris, drawing on those experiences from Africa. When I knew I wanted to write the book I decided to spend some time in a place called Montserrat outside Barcelona. There was a little, quiet camping ground beside the monastery on the mountain and I thought, I’m going to go up there and not come down until I’ve written it’, or at least have the main idea written down and worked out. So I went up there and wrote every night, drinking cheap red wine and rock climbing during the day, and when I came down I had the basic skeleton of the book. Then I came back to New Zealand for six months and lived in a little cottage on the Kaipara Harbour and finished the book. It was the best time of my life.
I’ll definitely go back to Africa. It gets under your skin. It’s a very special part of the world. Very troubled. It can be depressing at times, but beautiful and the people are wonderful. It all seems very far away from Goat Island where I am now. Right now I’m happy living here and working on NZ Doctor magazine. I’ve been here 18 months now.
But you just never know where life’s going to take you. I’ve ended up in the strangest situations which I could never have foreseen, but it’s about leaving yourself open to those chances, being positive, and taking those opportunities. So I have no idea what’s going to happen next. It could be anything, which is exciting. You never can tell where you’re going to be. I ended up at the BBC from growing up on a farm in Kaipara. Life’s bizarre sometimes.
“Swimming to Paris” is available at Unicorn Bookshop in Warkworth and The Village Bookshop in Matakana, or visit clifftaylor.co.nz
