Friday

Exploring the Past.

We are happy to present this extract from the much anticipated memoir by Kensington Longreach, soon to be published by Burga-Mot Press.

Exploring the Past.

Memoirs of a Gentleman Explorer,
Kensington Longreach, Esq.

I have always believed that a man should be judged by his actions, not by his words. It is to ensure that the correct version of my actions is made clear to the reading public that I have chosen to pen this memoir. I would beg your indulgence where sections of this tale may seem trite, overwrought or blatantly xenophobic; my life has been one lived at the extremes, both of the known world and of human endurance, and has not always allowed the luxuries of introspection or the paying of wages to those bound in service to me.

My childhood was a strange one. I was raised by wolves. Not, as is so often the case, because I became lost in the Jungle, but because of my father's unconventional views on education. At the age of three I was sent to board at the wolf-run Saint Gak's Boarding School in Yarmouth.

For me this was a magical time. Terms were spent running with the pack on the nearby moors, bringing down moose, yak and the occasional naturist. It was here that I learned my skills as a leader of both man and beast. I was greatly distressed when the school was closed because of accounting irregularities, leading to the arrests of several of the wolf-governors on fraud charges. From this point I returned home and was privately tutored by one of my father's minions.

My father, Major - General Dartanian Longreach, a naval surgeon, was a man well before his time. Years before the discovery of anesthetic, penicillin or the concept of patient consent, he was experimenting with invasive surgery techniques. He pioneered the Dorsal Lobotomy, the Liver Inversion and the Urinary Foxtrot, all years before these were even discredited by medical science. Rather than seek the limelight, he preferred to work alone in the basement of his mountaintop manor, rarely publishing, or even seeming to remember, the results of long nights spent in the basement laughing wildly with the sheer joy of discovery.

I recall my father as a sort of furry blob with legs. Obviously, my recollection is not complete. I believe he may have had a beard as well. He certainly had sideburns, and, when in a good mood, would entertain us children for days with his impersonation of a strategically shaved tennis ball.

Our peaceful world was shattered when my father began paddling in the occult. I was forced to become man of the house when an attempt to open the gates of hell went horribly wrong and he choked to death on a Popsicle stick.

For the next five years I dedicated myself relentlessly to continuing my father's research. I developed several novel techniques for the management of decapitation, although a cure escaped me, and was eventually able to prove a causal relationship between left-handedness and the pointy bits on pineapples. Finally, burned out with exhaustion and reeling from mercury fumes, I emerged from my studies to find myself, at the age of ten, a hunched and stinky wreck. Fortunately one of my lesser inventions had found some success in the novelty vaccination market, and I had sufficient moneys to maintain myself in relative comfort as I regained my strength and tried to reconnect with the outside world.

Further extracts to follow...