Stockport charity-founder, teacher, referee and globetrotter publishes memoirs
You'd be hard-pushed to find a Stopfordian who has lived a similar life to Keith Mills.
Keith has founded a charity in Uganda, met an African dictator (three times, at that) worked in the US during the peak of the civil rights movement, ran a gîte in a French town, and much more.
Now living in Woodsmoor with his wife Jeanette, Keith has published his memoirs, titled: "And Now For Something Completely Different". The book elaborates on all of the above, and more, demonstrating what can be done when you follow Keith's motto of 'just do it'.
"[The memoirs] started as something for our grandchildren", Keith explains. "[Jeanette and me] are both in our 80s now, and when we're gone, we're gone. [...] I wanted to leave something of our family history behind for them."
Keith and Jeanette's adventures began properly after they left the City of Sheffield Teacher Training College, where the pair studied to be teachers.
Their first big trip came not long after graduation, when the pair set out to America in 1964.
"We were working with kids from Harlem in a summer camp", Keith said. "We were naive Europeans - we didn't really understand what was going on.
"That was the year that Marin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and when Lyndon B Jonhnson passed the Civil Rights Act.
"We had a wonderful time with the children there - I even ended up proof-reading Democrat Party leaflets!"
Shortly after, in 1967, Keith and Jeanette moved to Zambia as teachers. Their two children were also born there.
Indeed, one chapter in the book is called "Rogan's First Safari", and recounts Keith and Jeanette's gargantuan trip across Africa with their then one-month-old son Rogan.
"We drove to the capital [Lusaka] and then sold the car, took the bus to Victoria Falls, then took the train from Victoria Falls down to Cape Town.
"The train ride took five days - along the way Nick [Rogan's older brother] had thrown my driver's licence out of the train window [...] it remains in the sands of the Kalahari to this day!
"From Cape Town we took the mail boat to Southampton, which was another 12 days. Rogan arrived in England when he was two months old."
Not long after their return to England, the family went back to Africa, this time to Uganda, working in Koboko and later Entebbe, again as teachers.
Koboko is a small town in the north of Uganda, and happens to be where Idi Amin was born in the 1920s (his birthdates are contested). Keith even met the dictator three times.
"I refereed a cup final, and [Amin] wanted to meet 'Mr Referee' afterwards. I was terrified I'd done something wrong.
"He was pleasant enough to everyone on the surface. There were two completely different sides to the man."
This varied lived experience is not the half of Keith and Jeanette's adventures; quite literally, as these stories come from only the first nine out of 20 chapters.
Later in life, the pair visited Argentina (where Keith's father - born in High Lane - worked), ran a gîte in France, and, most recently, founded the charity Forever Friends of Uganda (FFoU).
Educating and inspiring village children in Uganda is 'the heart' of what FFoU does; creating the conditions whereby children can realise careers and ambitions which would otherwise have been inaccessible.
The transformative impacts this has on a village - let alone the children themselves - pays dividends in spades.
FFoU's work has already produced a lawyer, a doctor, a radio journalist, several business starters, carpenters, builders, and more.
(Read more about FFoU's work in our separate article HERE, on on the FFoU website.)
Back in Stockport after a globetrotting couple of decades, Keith's advice to readers is 'just do it' - whatever that may look like for you.
You can buy a copy of And Now For Something Completely Different on Amazon HERE.
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