What happened to the snake?
If ‘hissstory’ serves me right, Oupa Python
exchanged his African heritage for a British passport.
Hopefully, he would have lived and have known the
likes of slithering under the leadership of Harold Wilson, tasted the iron of
Margaret thatcher and witnessed the
inauguration of John Major. That is if
he did not squeeze the life out of the wrong object, and if he lived to a ripe
old snake age of 25. What the British do with departed snakes is anyone’s
guess. A bag? Shoes? Not.
He did not broaden his horizon outside of the
English country side as his passport was all that returned to South Africa with
me. There was no investigation as to the whereabouts of the owner that did not
accompany his documents.
Our ‘divorce’ papers were signed when Paul Raymond
of Raymond’s Revue bar theatre declared that he wanted my show, but not the
snake. I was not cruel, as the
relationship between me and the snake was purely a business arrangement wherein
snake served as a logo and nothing more.
I was happy to have cleared the notion that a snake was my claim to
fame. I did have a show you know!
So what did happen to the snake? I left it behind in a happy state with a line
of voluptuous dancers bidding for the use of its services. The decision was left with the owner of the
girly enterprise. I danced off in to the
English limelight, solo for the first time and enjoyed the ‘hiss-less’ ride.
Even today, after so many hundreds of years, the
first questions asked by those in the know is: What happened to the snake? Now
you know!
From Glenda Kemp Harper. xxxxxx
