The Frozen Head of Monsieur Milenko by Elizabeth McDougall

For twenty-three years Elizabeth McDougall accompanied her husband, BBC Foreign Correspondent Ian, around the globe on three continents and in seven countries in what were, to put it mildly, interesting times. Mau Mau; Vietnam; the communist uprising in Malaysia; Yugoslavia under Tito; Moscow during the Cold War and other communist bloc countries all come into her story. Ian wrote lively letters from his many assignments away from base, the real story behind the official one of his encounters with statesmen of varied political persuasions, soldiers and rebels fighting for their independence and difficult customs officials who entertained strong objections to his BBC portable recorder. All these letters, Elizabeth kept. They have been used to illustrate her story. It depicts the life of a journalist's wife coping with her husband's many absences, the necessity of quickly learning foreign languages and the problems of raising a family all over the world. She also had the pleasure of observing, close-up, glamorous and famous personalities of the time, among them Brigitte Bardot, Jackie Kennedy, Ava Gardner and Madame Nikita Khrushchev. Elizabeth also experienced a less agreeable incident when she was nearly captured by Vietnamese communists outside Hanoi.

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About the Author
Elizabeth McDougall was born in 1933 in London, England. She went with her parents to Africa in 1939, and after living for a short period in what was then Southern Rhodesia arrived in Kenya in 1942. In 1953 she married Ian McDougall, a BBC Foreign Correspondent, who had been sent to Kenya to cover the Mau Mau rebellion for the BBC. For the next twenty-seven years she and her growing family accompanied him in many postings, which included Singapore, Belgrade, Paris, Vienna, Bonn, Brussels and finally, as their last post, Paris again. Elizabeth and Ian now live in Henfield in West Sussex.

Matushka

Getting Matushka Out by Ian McDougall

On the rivers of northern Russia a torrid love affair between a Russian lecturer and an English woman unfolds on a tourist ship and then climaxes in violent tragedy. The man is the son of a former Soviet official, now gravely ill, and his wife who are stationed in London on the eve of the collapse of the old Soviet Union. They insist that their son and daughter stay there because they will have a better future in Britain than in the wreck of the old Soviet Union to which they themselves now have to return. As time passes Nick Bell (as the lecturer is now named in his forged documents) is determined to go back to Russia and find his mother, or matushka as he fondly calls her, and bring her back to London whatever the risk. Thus begins his desperate hunt for matushka, acted out against the background of Nick's passionate relationship with Dotty Desmond, the ship's Tour Manager, and his often hilarious contacts with the passengers on board. His search is further complicated by the onslaught of a Russian mafia gang which stages a swift-moving and brutal attempt to snatch the ship from rivals, and in so doing dramatically changes the future for Nick and Dotty.

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About the Author
Ian McDougall has been involved in news and current affairs for almost all of his working life. he started with the Agence France-Presse in Paris and then became the BBC's youngest foreign correspondent at the age of twenty-eight. Assignments in Berlin, Bonn, Vienna, Belgrade, Moscow and again in Paris follwed, as well as periods in Africa and the Far East. He has specialised in the affairs of former communist East Europe and is widely regarded as an authority on the subject. Later he tutored and lectured for seven years at Oxford University's Department for External Studies and later still he worked as a guest lecturer on ships plying the Russian rivers and canals, which involved dealing with visitors from many nations.
He has written ten books before this one. Three of them, which are non-fiction, deal with Germany, Africa and the life of a foreign correspondent. There are also seven novels under the pen-name William Fennerton.
He and his wife Elizabeth have two daughters and three granddaughters and live in West Sussex.

Cracks

The Cracks in the Pavement by Elizabeth McDougall

This is the story of a dysfunctional white family - the Kingstons - set against the beautiful, at times dangerous, but always fascinating background of colonial pre-independent Kenya of the nineteen forties and fifties. It follows the youngest child in the family, Mardy, from childhood into adulthood struggling to make sense of a grown-up, parental world she cannot understand but often resents. Her 'little girl' close relationship with a young Italian, who later erupts into her life with dire consequences, all influence the grown-up Mardy Kingston. Africans, her black nursemaid in particular, play a very important role in her young life. Although she comes from a white settler culture she does not always subscribe to it. This is the Africa of the last century, an Africa that is now nearly gone. Violence; animals (charming and also terrifying); blue warm seas; palm trees; love (and hate) affairs; colonial charmers who are larger than life. All these, plus an embattled relationship with her mother, form Mardy's character and make her the attractive, complicated and sensual girl she becomes.

"A very enjoyable read! ... find it hard to put the book down."
"I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to anyone who knew Kenya in the 1940s and 50s".
"Like a terrific BBC mini series! ..."

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