In 1970, at the age of 25, Tom Atkins is unemployed and struggling to keep his young family and home in England. He sells his small car and uses the proceeds to buy a flight to Africa and with little preparation, sets off in search for a better life. Tom has only five pounds in his pocket and is obliged to borrow £30 from his father as they drive to the airport. Then, in an incredible sequence of events, the situations he encounters become more life-threatening than life-changing as Tom stumbles from one perilous situation to another, often at the point of a gun. Lucky to survive horrendous plane journeys, the threat of imprisonment and the everyday challenges of a wild and dangerous continent. Tom lives to tell his tale. These thrilling and often hilarious travel stories reflect s precarious time in both Tom's and Africa's history, and offer a fascinating personal insight into Idi Amin's Uganda and the pernicious Apartheid of South Africa, as they emerge from a colonial past to carve out a new future.