I Did It My Way: Memoirs of a Maverick

by Crawford 'Scotty' Kemp

The life of a self-confessed nonconformist may not always be easy, but it is usually interesting. I Did It My Memoirs of a Maverick tells the fascinating story of Crawford Kemp’s journey from the tenements of Clydeside ‘between the wars’ - and the blitzed city of Hull during the war - to a new life in vibrant South America. His memories of 1950s Uruguay and Brazil and experiences as a Scottish cowboy on the large estancias of Argentina and Patagonia offer unique insights into ranch life as well as the graceful wildlife of the area, interspersed with vivid and often humorous stories, which are filled with improbable and eccentric characters. He lands up in many extraordinary situations, meeting high-ranking military personnel, high-flying politicians and titled gentry as well as Mapuches of the Patagonian Araucano nation, who share some historical secrets from the ‘Conquest of the Desert’.Leaving behind the life of a young ranch manager after a riding accident, he eventually spends a number of years in a high-powered executive post in Buenos Aires during a time of political instability, finding himself in volatile and at times humorous situations. He later returns penniless to Patagonia where he builds a cabin in the Andean foothills, which he never intends to leave - only to discover that he cannot fully escape from the past. Returning to the UK in the late 1970s, he spends time working in England, Shetland, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and is finally convinced that big business and its questionable ethics are no longer for him. He instead develops a natural healing practice in the south of England before returning home to a wee council house in Scotland and to adventures, discoveries and explorations of a more internal nature. Told as though sitting around the fire with a good whisky, there are sometimes funny, sometimes not so funny stories with titles like, ‘The Ever Gentle Guanaco’, Saints and Virgins’, ‘Back to Fray Bentos,’ ‘Corned Beef and Brothels’, ‘No Natives Allowed’, ‘Magic and Macumba’, ‘Armadillos and Funerals’, ‘New Age or New Edge’ and so on. The essays in the appendix cover topics such as English royalty, addictions and neurobiology, freemasons, the Falklands war, Scottish sovereignty, psychic phenomena and spirituality. I Did It My Way is engagingly written - insightful, humorous, personal and at times challenging.While you may not agree with everything the book has to say, it invites you to see life from a different angle.There is a link to free access to the photographs which appear in the print edition (www.holorosepublishing.com).

310 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 3, 2012