Entering
the Not-So-Swinging Sixties -
Bangkok Post, July 9, 2006
Don writes: Roger Crutchley, the Sports
editor at the "Bangkok Post," turned 60 last week. Below are
his thoughts on spending 37 years in Thailand. (In 1969, he
set out from England with some friends, to travel overland
to Australia. His stories of 1969 Afghanistan are highly amusing.
He stopped in Thailand and never left):
...A common question is how I have ''survived'' in Thailand
all these years, as if living here was some kind of punishment.
In fact it's been a delight, but there have admittedly been
times when I didn't have a clue what was going on. It's a
truism that the longer you stay in Thailand, the more you
realise how little you know about the place.
...In 1969, our 800 baht a month house in Makkasan wasn't
air-conditioned so we left the door and windows open to let
the breeze in. It also let the neighbours in - an immediate
introduction to the Thai community spirit. Everybody dropped
in to say hello and they made themselves at home. Sometimes
I'd surface to find half the neighbourhood ensconced downstairs
getting stuck into their mid-morning som tam. Babies who'd
never seen a farang before would scream in horror at the sight
of the whiter-than-white Crutch tottering down the stairs...
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