IN LATE 2021 I received an order for three small Kes statuettes and three copies of my first book, ‘Build it for Barry’. I immediately recognised the buyer’s name – Simon Burns – whom I’d taught at Kexborough Junior School 40 years earlier.

We became Facebook friends and it was pleasing, but not surprising, to hear how he’d made such a brilliant success of his sports-related career in the Royal Navy.

Soon afterwards, I received a private Facebook message from his older sister, Debbie, whom I’d never met. Her very first paragraph grabbed my full attention:

“Dear Mr Steele,

“I’m Debbie Burns, Simon’s older sister, and I’m about to begin reading your new book, whilst lying in my hammock at home in West Africa.”

I was fascinated and wanted to know more, and this is what I discovered:

Debbie’s adult life was conventional enough – married with two children – but around 25 years ago, things began to change when she and her family went on holiday to Gambia. She was so impressed with the place, she got a job on the World Bank project, digitalising old colonial maps.

She was good at her job and the 18 month’s contract led to a 23-year career and a luxury lifestyle for her and the family.

She even bought a remote plot of land, about half the size of a football pitch, way out in the West African bush, not really knowing what to do with it.

But when her marriage ended and her children had matured into adults, she felt a powerful urge to undertake something completely different. So, she seriously began to ask herself: would it be possible to use my remote piece of land to build my own home in the African Bush? It would be completely off-grid – no close neighbours, no roads, no power, no drinking water and no shops, et cetera.

Her pipedream turned into a burning ambition and she started to make secret plans.

She would cash in her occupational pension and retire early. She would try and get the moral support of her family and then employ local builders to create a home that could be supplied with solar power, a water well and a pump. She’d also need a cart and donkey for transporting heavy loads, a shower, privy, refrigerator, a means of cooking food, and a garden to grow her own fruit and veg.

After lots of careful consideration, Debbie took a deep breath and closed her eyes, before taking a giant leap of faith into a completely new world.

Her plot of land is in an area once occupied by British and allied soldiers during World War II, and is still known locally as Toubab-bung (The Land of the White Men). It also just happens to be very near to where, hundreds of years earlier, Alex Haley’s famous ancestor – Kunta Kinteh – was born and raised before he was abducted into slavery.

To buy from the nearest shops, Debbie has to complete an eight-hour round-trip, across bush-terrain and a four-mile wide river.

I asked if she ever feels lonely. “Not really,” she told me. “There’s no time for loneliness because during every waking hour I’m busy with my hands and my brain - problem solving. At first, my failures were greater than my successes but after a while I began to get an intense feeling of accomplishment. And then there’s the incredible bliss I often experience when I feel ‘at one’ with the universe.

“Anyway, I do have neighbours who, although a fair distance away, are really friendly and supportive.”

I read Debbie’s memoir recently and discovered that she is also an extremely talented writer, with cartloads of authenticity and impish humour. So it was hardly surprising when I discovered that her mother, Valerie, had a long and successful career working for the Barnsley Chronicle, and was a former friend and colleague of Mike Parkinson and Brian Glover.

Last week I put Debbie in touch with award-winning documentary-maker, Jenny Dames. If, for any reason, Jenny can’t follow this up, I’m certain someone else will seize this golden opportunity to record Debbie’s extraordinary achievements.

Today (Friday 14th) happens to be her birthday, and I predict that, very soon, you’ll be hearing a lot more about my incredible pen-pal, formerly of Darton but now of Toubab-bung, Gambia.

(Debbie’s three book titles are: Granontherun [sic]: Stories from the African Bush; Valerie: A Child of Two Worlds; and Granontherun [sic]: Stories from the Camino.)