The young couple were walking slowly up the steeply-inclined road from the centre of town. He was frowning at his smartphone. She was pointing at it. I had just come up from the canal towpath onto the road, heading for my nearest park. We were in Bath, UK, a city through which the river Avon winds on its way to Bristol. I asked the couple if they were lost...

I have been hired by a coffee farmer on the edge of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania to give advice on the endless battle between commercial farming and nature conservation. The NCA comprises the famous caldera itself plus the indigenous forest surrounding it. Sadly, I have long lost interest in the crater. In October 2001, just after 9/11, I took a client there on safari and we had the place to ourselves. Today over a million people a year visit the crater:

My first venture abroad was an exchange with young Eric de Lavigne. His mother was the worst cook in the whole of France, and he was the naughtiest nastiest boy I’ve ever met.   A lot happened to me between then and the following entry from my journal. Not only did I grow from a somewhat precocious 12-year-old into an 18-year-old young man; I travelled alone or in company to Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Italy. I had my first serious love affair, initiated on the afternoon