Censored!

Sir,

I don’t suppose that you have ever expected Motor Sport, a magazine of notably conservative opinion, to be subject to the attention of official censorship, but I’m afraid that I have to report that this is indeed so in at least one country, namely Malawi. Having purchased my May copy in Blantyre, the largest town in Malawi, and flicked briefly through the pages, I was very amused to set on reaching page that the censor’s brush had been at work. I will leave you to discover what awfully offensive material had been carefully obliterated with thick black ink, except that I will repeat that at is page 652 (i.e. opposite the article on Sports 2000) and the area receiving attention was at the BOTTOM of the page.

As I am now in the process of returning to UK, I look Forward to catching up on missed copies of Motor Sport, at a reasonable price, after two years “in the bush”.

Ndola, Zambia COLIN TURNER

(Malawi’s “censorship” is well known in Africa. Women are forbidden to wear trousers, and I remember going into Blantyre in a light aircraft with friends from Kenya, and because the skirt worn by a lady passenger was a trifle on she short side, she was not allowed to leave the aircraft except to visit immigration. G.P.)