Bagamoyo means “lay down your heart” and the many people who found themselves there waiting to be taken to America as slaves did just that. They huddled in the crowded dungeons, with no control over their fate. Centuries later I had come to visit out of choice, and I found that I lay down my heart too.

Bagamoyo is on the Tanzanian coast, about three hundred miles from the capital, Dar-es-Salaam. There were two places for visitors to stay. One was in the middle of the town, noisy from traffic and the market, with hot airless rooms. I chose to stay at the other place, which had rooms overlooking the sea, with cooling breezes and a lovely beach. It was simple and friendly and I felt at home there.

I quickly settled into a routine. I would rise early, eat bread and jam and fruit, mangoes or pineapple fresh from a neighbour’s plantation, and drink delicious Tanzanian coffee. The one drawback to this arrangement was the unwelcome attention of a monkey, pet of the hotel owners but a terrible intrusive nuisance. He ate anything that he could get his paws on, and particularly liked pens and combs. Then I would have a swim. The sea was warm and clean and it was wonderful. I would pop into town for lunch, splitting my custom between the two cafes. At one I learned a useful Swahili phrase that has stayed with me ever since. “maji akunwa baridi sana” which means "very cold drinking water".

I had intermittent access to news during my travels, but in Bagamoyo I was able to receive the BBC World Service loud and clear. I could follow the wrangling in the Conservative party, leading up to Margaret Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister on November 22nd 1990. It was a happy day. I emerged from my morning swim, idly switched on the radio, and heard  the announcement live as it broke into the regular programme. I felt a long way from home that day, particularly as the one English person staying in Bagamoyo had gone out. I shared the news with an Australian and a German, and they were interested, but there are times when only a common national perspective will do. (I learnt later that my mother had danced  barefoot across the zebra crossing outside her place of work with a bottle of wine when she heard the news. I would have liked to have seen that).

There are more beautiful towns than Bagamayo , but it had an inexplicable pull that made me stay on. I will remember it too as the place where I heard of a historic day in British politics. I think of other news items I have heard across the world, or, more recently, read on the internet, but the place I heard of the demise of Mrs Thatcher stays in my memory more than most.