Ross Liggins is back with more anecdotes and insights
The first tricky and somewhat sticky situation in my life, so I was told, was having a big head at birth. Apparently, my poor mother, who had me in a Catholic hospital run by nuns, wasn’t able to access pain relief for some reason, so my rather large head presented quite a problem for her. Perhaps it was pious revenge on the part of sexually frustrated nuns, or perhaps it was papal policy. We will never know, but I can’t imagine what might have transpired had they known I had been conceived out of wedlock.
Many years later another tricky situation presented itself in Kathmandu, Nepal while I was travelling in my early twenties. I had, unfortunately, eaten a delicious looking piece of cake in one of Kathmandu’s infamously unhygienic cake shops and was struck down with a bad bout of what was known at the time as ‘Delhi belly’ which resulted in constant evacuations of belly and bowel from both ends. That night, which was interrupted by regular rushed visits to the loo, I was suddenly awoken by yells of “Fire, fire!” and grey smoke seeping under my closed door. Without thinking and in a daze, I jumped up and ran downstairs through the acrid smelling smoke and stood amongst the other guests who had made a similar escape. It was only when some of them looked at me and started chuckling, that I realised I was stark naked. The kindly hotel manager brought me a robe to cover my private parts, and told us that the smoke had been caused by a smouldering mattress in one of their hippy guest’s rooms and that the danger had passed. We all returned inside – but if I had had to quickly find a toilet in the street, any alleyway would have sufficed as these were often used as latrines by locals in those days. I hope sanitation has improved since then.
After surviving Nepal, I headed south to India where I booked the cheapest flight I could find to Europe to meet up with my French girlfriend, who had returned home to France a few weeks previously. She claimed to be an anarchist and didn’t believe in working in the system and paying taxes. She seemed to be able to get by, by being supported by enamoured boyfriends including yours truly. Being an anarchist, of course she refused to visit the dentist.
Unfortunately, while in India with me she was stricken by severe toothache. The cheapest dentistry in New Delhi was administered by gentlemen on the street who sat on blankets with an array of evil looking medical instruments to perform instant extractions on the spot without expensive anaesthetic. Even an anarchist balked at such a cheap opportunity. The next cheapest and less painful option was to purchase balls of raw opium, readily available in the markets, and stuff it into the offending cavity in the rotten tooth. This worked like a dream, temporarily, so on departing India with a small supply of this dental treatment secreted in her luggage, she asked me to also bring some when I left for Europe. Being young, stupid and enthralled, of course I agreed.
So a few weeks later, on the day of my flight on Syrian Arab Airlines, I went to the market and purchased a few small balls of the sticky black material and hid it in a split seam inside one of my boots. Being one of only two Europeans on the Arab Airlines flight and having long hair and clothes stained by travelling, I stood out like dogs’ balls and so was singled out by customs when the plane transited in Munich. The stern looking German police officer ordered a complete body search and told me to take off my boots. Fortunately, the smell that emanated from them after weeks of travel in Asia was enough to make him back off and tell me to put them back on without close examination. Thank god for smelly feet, otherwise my misspent youth might have been further misspent eating sauerkraut and sausage in a German jail. On arrival in France, my girlfriend was delighted with my gift, but also told me she had visited a dentist when her opium had run out and the pain had become unbearable – so much for anarchism.
We parted soon afterwards.
Words by Ross Liggins
Art by Tessa Zank
