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| Wilbur Smith |
This much I know
W
Even after writing 29 novels, I hate the loneliness, the doubt. Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression, so I go on safari on my ranch in South Africa, or fishing off my island in the Seychelles. When I come back and re-read it, I think: 'What was all that about, Smith? It's fine, just get on with it.'
The most effective way to kill any animal is for it to die before it even knows you are there.
At boarding school I would cry myself to sleep at night - but into the pillow, because if you were caught blubbing you were an outcast. It taught me stoicism and to endure.
I've eaten lion, leopard, crocodile, python. I don't recommend lion. It tastes exactly like when a tomcat comes into your house and sprays. Snake and crocodile are great - a cross between lobster and chicken.
In 1982, I decided on a whim to buy a great deal of en primeur claret. It turned out to be one of the best years of the century. But I realised every time I opened a bottle it was worth more than £500. I can buy a very good bottle of South African wine here in Knightsbridge for £8, so I sold the lot.
As a young man I was arrogant and I thought women were attracted by what I wanted - beautiful bodies. Then I realised that a lot of happily married girls are with ugly guys, but they are gentle, thoughtful people.
Elephant pee tastes foul. I've drunk it by mistake, walking for three days after an elephant. You find a waterhole, but the elephant's got there before you and peed in it. Boy, can you taste it.
I used to gamble at university, but my best friend's father, a highly respected headmaster, told me that gambling is no fun unless you play it for stakes you can't afford. I thought about that and gave it up.
The secret of a good sex scene is to write it at full throttle, then think about it.
I don't know how many lions and leopards I've shot. I've shot two elephants, which was enough - never again. It's a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It's like shooting an old man.
Men make good buddies, but women are better long-term companions. They are a good investment.
I've been really terrified many times. When I was a boy I used to steal birds' eggs. Once there was a mamba in the nest - the most venomous of all snakes. We children were forced to wear a pith helmet and as the mamba struck I ducked instinctively. I hit the ground running, and when I stopped and looked at the hat, it had a patch of venom on it the size of both hands.
I am not a good father. I have not put in the time. But I've done what I thought was right at the time.
The one thing that still shocks me is man's inhumanity to man. When I was doing National Service in Rhodesia I saw little girls who had been held up by the legs and sliced down the middle. We had to fish them out of the pit lavatory. My mother asks me why I have to go into so many gory details in my books, but witnessing such brutality affects my characters, just as it has affected me.
The colonial society which I grew up in was unjust by 21st-century standards, but it was not brutal as Zimbabwe is today. People like Mugabe have the instinct of the fox. They are very hard to get rid of.
Danielle and I were very happily married for 40 years, but she developed a brain tumour. They cut away half her brain so she wasn't the same person. I lived more or less as a bachelor for six years. That's why I married again a few months after she died. I need a woman. I don't usually hit on strangers, but when I met a young, bright, fun-loving girl in WHSmith, a light flashed on in my mind and I thought - let's do it.
My new wife is 32 and I'm 70. She's rejuvenated me totally. It's so exciting to see life through the eyes of a modern girl. She's changed the way I dress. My mother and sister are delighted with her. They say I seem 20 years younger, and my mates ask: 'How did you get so lucky?'
They say if you drink Zambezi water with your mother's milk, you are always a slave of Africa, and I am.
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