An unplanned adventure through remote parts of East Africa has inspired a Musselburgh man to write his first book.

Childhood sweethearts Graeme Forbes-Smith and his wife Candy, who both grew up in the Honest Toun and are former Musselburgh Grammar School pupils, came to a crossroads in 2008 when the financial crash hit, and decided to take six months out to reassess their lives.

Their journey took them to Africa, where they now live and work in Maasai country, in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro and close to 2,000 elephants, along with lions, cheetah, buffalo, hippo, giraffe, hyena and a huge amount of plains game and exotic birdlife.

Graeme is now celebrating the publication of his book, Don’t Shake the Mango Tree: Tales of a Scottish Maasai, published by Olympia Publishers, which reached No 1 in Amazon Africa’s hot new reads.

He explained: “The book is a work of fiction, with the safari lodge featured in the book a composite of all the places we have worked, in a made up reserve on the border of Kenya and Tanzania.

“However, almost all the stories and events woven through the story more or less did happen to us as we had our unplanned adventure through the most remote parts of East Africa.”

The couple lived on Musselburgh’s Campie Road, with sons Kris and Sean, before they embarked on their African adventure.

“Candy and I had a crossroads moment when the 2008 financial crash happened and decided to take six months out to reassess our lives,” Graeme said

“We flew to Tanzania and rented a small cottage and a 4x4 car on a gorgeous deserted beach on the coast between Dar Es Salaam and the Kenya border. We spent our time doing safaris, snorkelling and diving.”

He added: “We had visited East Africa as tourists on safari. Myself and my old school friend Gordon King, also from Musselburgh but born in Nairobi, used to do multiple trips to Kenya and Tanzania on home-made safaris and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru.

“Gordon, who was working close by our rented cottage, died suddenly of a heart attack soon after we arrived and, unlike in the UK, there was no support for us to deal with this. We had to bury him ourselves, with all that entailed. The local community were an enormous help and this was when we began to really feel at home in our new surroundings.

“After another three months we were offered a job as general managers of a beach lodge in a marine reserve and accepted, with no real experience in hospitality other than working part time in bars when we were younger.

“We quickly grew to love the job and lifestyle.”

A few years later the couple went to manage a luxury safari lodge in Saadani National Park, where they worked for four years before moving to a remote luxury lodge in Ruaha National Park in the south of Tanzania.

They then got the chance to go to Kenya with Elewana Tortilis Camp, at Amboseli, where they have worked for the last five years as general managers of a luxury safari lodge.

Respected members of the local Maasai community, the couple have helped raise thousands of dollars to build and extend the village school.

Graeme explained: “We are general managers of a lodge set in Maasai country, which is an eco lodge with a gold Eco Tourism Kenya rating, and employ more than 60 per cent of our staff from the local Maasai community.

“We are committed to assisting the community whenever we can and regularly send cars and drivers out, even in the middle of the night, to transport someone who has fallen seriously ill to the nearest hospital two to three hours’ drive away.

He said: “In 2020, before the Covid outbreak hit the world, we organised the Scottish Maasai sponsored walk, when Candy and I, along with one of our sons, in our kilts and Maasai shukas (robes) walked 12km through the bush from the lodge to the local school and managed to raise $5500, which was used to provide solar power for the school library.

“We also personally sponsor one young girl and pay for her boarding at the school dormitory, her uniform, meals and any books she may need.

“In 2019, we built the first children’s playground in the Esiteti area using old recycled tyres from our game drive vehicles and old metal posts from an old fence, and made swings and climbing frames along with balancing bars.

“The school is in an elephant corridor and frequently elephants will break into the school compound, and destroy water towers and eat all the produce in the vegetable garden.

“We always make the repairs and recently a local sponsor paid for an electric fence to be installed.”

Graeme added: “We are all big Hearts (FC) fans. The Maasai, like all Kenyans and Tanzanians, love football and mostly follow the English Premier League but now take an interest in all things Hearts.”

When they are not working or visiting Kris, his wife Kirsty and their daughter Matilda (Tilly) in Shanghai, or Sean and his girlfriend Gigi in South Korea, the couple stay at their family house in Brittany in western France.

In Don’t Shake the Mango Tree: Tales of a Scottish Maasai, at age 50, Graeme and Candy abandon their comfortable life and move to Tanzania, where they rent a cottage on a deserted beach near an old friend who tragically dies.

Out of the blue they accept a job to manage a luxury safari lodge in the middle of the African bush.

Their life becomes an exciting rollercoaster of emotions and madcap adventures as they are submerged into the local culture and gradually become members of the Maasai community.

Floating on the surface like swans, they paddle furiously below water as they cater to their international guests’ every whim.

Each tale is told with humour and gratitude. Graeme and Candy fell in love with Africa and feel that, reading this book, it is impossible for readers not to do the same.