Paget's Progress: A Tale of High Adventure and Low SalariesPaget’s Progress is the true story of a man emerging from humble beginnings to a life packed with adventure and variety in Africa. Dick’s varied career has included being an army Medic; running a rehabilitation centre for army casualties; outward bound centres and managing a security firm in Malawi. His story is told with humour, excitement and pathos; making it a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read.
Despite his humble upbringing Dick discovered that he had an uncanny ability to influence people and events; a natural gift that escapes his comprehension to this day. However it is a factor that becomes increasingly more apparent as his life unfolds.
Dick’s story weaves through his childhood during the Second World War, his education, friendships, sporting activities and conscription into the RAF; each anecdote unfolding in a self deprecating style. After being accepted by the Rhodesian Army Medical Corps, Dick travelled to Africa.
From here on Dick treats the reader to a non-stop series of events that encompass just about every aspect of human experience, and the variety of his work experience and interests make it all the more intriguing. This idyllic lifestyle stops abruptly when Robert Mugabe comes to power in 1980. Dick did not get on at all well with Mugabe’s interpretation of freedom, and not overly enthusiastic at the prospect of spending a few years in a Zimbabwe jail, the Pagets fled to South Africa.
From there the story tells the highs and lows of his family’s nomadic times in South Africa, Scotland, Malawi and again in Zimbabwe before returning to England where they now live – for the moment. When the reader turns over the last page there will be the inescapable feeling that the Paget’s have truly lived and enriched countless lives along the way. |
