The North Africa Hat

The little brown suitcase contains some very strange things, including this hat. I wore it on the long hitch-hike in North Africa but only, I think, when we were on our way home, so it was probably bought in Egypt. I have no recollection of what I wore on my head in the earlier part.

For someone who, while waiting for a lift - and this could be for many hours - sat or, more usually, squatted in the blazing Sahara sun, it was totally inappropriate.

I have never worn it since and really don't know why I haven't thrown it away except.... having a tangible souvenir of long-ago events somehow makes them more more immediate in the way a photograph doesn't. The hat was there, the picture wasn't.

More and more, these days, that sort of tenuous connection to the past seems important.