Epic African adventure proved the perfect bonding experience
Cuckfield-born former paratrooper Adrian Stratta is in print with the travelogue Dusty Boots to Boardroom – Follow Your Dreams, the tale of an epic journey.
As he says, it’s the notion of following your dreams which is the crucial part. Adrian and his wife Catherine followed theirs as they travelled the length of Africa, starting in Pretoria, South Africa, before heading down to Cape Town and then heading from the southern tip of the continent up to the northern tip in a big S shape, with plenty of adventures along the way.
The book (dustybootstoboardroom.com) explores resilience, love and the human spirit in an overland journey filled with trials and triumphs. Along the way they were held at gunpoint during the Darfur war, met Emmy-nominated actress Stephanie Powers and mercenary Simon Mann and survived a car crash. It all strengthened the bond between them.
“The journey was at the end of my military career. I spent 17 years in the forces. I joined the parachute regiment. I thought that I wasn't going to be there for that long but I just loved it. In the end I decided when I wanted to leave and it was like a light bulb moment. I engineered my last job in South Africa.
“But at that point Catherine and I were like ships in the night. She was working in the pharmaceutical industry and I was hard and fast in my military career. What brought us together were holidays. We went on African safaris.”
One day Adrian was enjoying his sundowner: “And I just thought wouldn't it be lovely if we went from London to Cape Town. I put the thought out there and I imagined it was something that would go to the back of my mind but Catherine said ‘Alright, we are going to do that.’
“That was two or three years before we did the journey, and we did the journey in 2002. I have spent the last 20 years doing interim management and using my leadership skills. I was working in aviation but during Covid everything stopped. I had kept a diary of the journey, and I just started writing. A couple of months later I had the book. I started talking to friends and authors and publicists and got all sorts of advice, all sorts of equal and opposite advice! But a friend of a friend put me in touch with an editor.”
And Adrian has now self-published the volume. He is pleased to have come at it with the benefit of hindsight and perspective: “We capture what happened because of the diary but I think the fact of having perspective is really important. It is about events. It's looking at what happened before and after. I take a humorous look at the regiment but it is about us. It is about people and it is about maturity. It could have broken us but it actually really made us. Because of the military, we were on divergent paths but the adventure really brought us together. We can sit back now in our quiet moments with respect and know that we did this together and that we had the endurance and that there is a common bond of experience and understanding between us.”
The journey was a bold leap into the unknown, a journey deep into the wild heart of Africa. “What followed was a journey of reconnection, challenge and discovery. From unexpected detours to transformative encounters, this is the true story of how an African adventure reshaped our relationship, our perspectives and ultimately our lives.”