Ann Patras

Ann Patras was born in Burton upon Trent, England quite a while ago. In 1971 she emigrated to Canada for a year before returning to the UK where, in 1974, she married her boyfriend of five years. In 1980 she and her husband Ziggy rounded up their three small children and headed for Zambia, initially on a 2 year contract. They finally left Zambia in 1989, moving down to South Africa where they lived for 22 years. Career-wise Ann commenced work as a legal secretary, changing tack to Administration in the brewing industry after she got married. After moving to Zambia and not officially being permitted to work, her time was occupied by voluntary posts with various social or sports organisations. In South Africa work ranged from the shipping industry, to dressmaker and finally as Administration Manager of the Watercolour Society of SA. In her spare time she spent several years as a Police Reservist, chiefly in the Mounted Unit in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Always a keen letter writer, Ann entertained numerous family members and friends with tales of their various adventures, calamities and just plain silly activities over the years. She was constantly nagged by them to “write a book about it!”. Buying her first PC in 1987 for the sole purpose of writing the book, Ann got through many PCs before 'Into Africa: with 3 Kids, 13 Crates and a Husband' was published in 2014. As this only covers their very first year of life in Zambia. Her second book, 'More Into Africa: with 3 kids, some dogs and a husband' was released in 2016. The final book in this Zambia Trilogy, 'Much More Into Africa with kids, dogs, horses and a husband' was released in January 2020. Ann and her husband now live in Spain, where she has still more to write about their lives in Africa.