A 50-year adventure in Turkey

During lockdown one of my most enjoyable distractions was to proof-read my friend George Dearsley’s first book.
In 1972, after leaving university and before starting as a trainee journalist at the Whitley Bay Guardian, the 21-year-old George went on a road trip to Japan with three pals. On the way they enjoyed an eye-opening adventure in Turkey.

For George, it was the start of a lifelong love affair with the country. After repeated visits, making good friends along the way, George and his wife Carolyn bought a holiday home and later moved to the mountain village of Kaplan to live permanently. 

His memoir - Twelve Camels For Your Wife - covers all aspects of Turkish life. He tells how he grappled with the language, struggled to rebuild a house in the mountains, survived an earthquake and endured the out-of-control antics of his pupils when teaching at a local school. 

There is an insight into the country’s bureaucratic eccentricities, its superstitions, its politics and what to expect if you need medical attention.

There are, of course, plenty of stories of bars and restaurants, Turkish cuisine and the country’s complicated relationship with alcohol. Why, for example, has the national drink changed from raki to ayran, a yoghurt-based drink? 

Carolyn and George with dogs Darcy and Willow on their Turkish balcony

The highlights, though, are the colourful characters and friends that George met along the way.

There is his friend Danny de Souza who had been sentenced to death for possessing cannabis. There is the time he went sailing with an ex-psychiatric patient, who had suffered panic attacks after being shell-shocked, in a yacht that once sank.

He takes us to weddings, funerals, circuses and camel-fights. We join him in the front-row at a circumcision, a disastrous restaurant music night, helping a friend butcher a wild boar in his garden and watching a sword-swallowing act … with a snake.
George leads the reader on a hugely entertaining romp through his 50-year love affair with Turkey and the generosity and eccentricities of its people. It is a great read, at times hilarious, at other times heartbreaking, but there really is never a dull moment. What an adventure. If you fancy a good read you can get a Kindle or paperback edition on Amazon here.