Left Swinging in a Baobab

From Christine Nicholls, née Metcalfe:

My father, C.J. Metcalfe, was the headmaster of MEPs. In the evenings we were press-ganged into helping to raise funds for a school hall at the primary school, at various events or at cocktail parties in our house, which were torture for my naturally shy mother.

At a fund-raising dance for the school my father, Revd Jupp, and another notable did a skit on the three witches from Macbeth. Jupp, as one of the witches, was to swing Tarzan-like from a baobab tree down to the cauldron. A rope was attached to his waist, looped over a branch, and held by my father, who was going to let him down gently. He proved to be too heavy and fell down fast, landing flat on his back. My father, still loyally clutching the rope, was hoisted high into the baobab and left swinging. This caused hilarity among the schoolchildren, who tied the rope to the tree and left him there, though only for a while because his wrath was mighty.

Christine's book, A Kenya Childhood, is available from Amazon - link here.