In January 2011, I had the honour to live through the Egyptian Revolution and while I remained largely housebound during those uncertain days, I decided to start a project that had been the inspiration of many past students at various schools I had taught in over the previous 30 years. The call to commit a myriad of stories that I had told in countless school assemblies to paper was testament to the fact that these stories had been the inspiration to many hundreds of students and staff who constantly reminded me of them on various media and social networking sites, on the internet and often on chance encounters in the flesh.

Now, in 2021, the book is some 350 pages long and the illustrations number some 25. It could go on for much longer but I have introduced a deadline for October 2021. Makapan's Gat mean's Makapan's hole. It is a series of caves in northern South Africa that hide a wide variety of sometimes fascinating and sometimes disturbing stories and the road to this unusual place represents a journey. My journey to Makapan's Cave was the first of many life changing experiences. And that in essence is the purpose of my book; to illustrate a variety of journeys through life of both a personal and physical nature. It is not an overly  serious book and I hope, as in the assemblies over the years, one which raises many smiles and occasionally and outburst of laughter at the inconguities of life. Michael Phillips March 2021