I Remember It Well Fifty Years of Colonial Service Personal Reminiscences Edited By David Le Breton Foreword By Anthony Kirk-Greene Librario Published by Librario Publishing Ltd. ISBN : 978-1906775186 Copies can be ordered from retail or via the internet at : www.librario.com or from : Brough House Milton Brodie Kinloss Morayshire IV36 2UA Tel / Fax : 01343 850178 Cover design & layout by Steven James www.chimeracreations.co.uk Front cover image : Schoolboy Nathaniel Pemberton climbing the Union Jack fl ag pole, St Kitts, Leeward Islands 1955 (Courtesy Th e Imperial War Museum) Back cover image : Tariq Chaudry, 115 Elmscolt Road, Bromley, Kent BR1 4RJ Printed and bound in Great Britain © 2010 David Le Breton The individual authors have asserted their moral right to be identified as the authors of this Work. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission from the authors. Contents Foreword by Anthony Kirk-Greene 9 Preface 11 Note on Copyright 15 The Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association 17 PART 1 : ADMINISTRATION, POLICE & SECURITY 1.1 Vacancy Tanganyika by J Lewis-Barned 21 1.2 A Course of Fun (the First Devonshire) by B D Wilson 25 1.3 Checking the Books by R E N Smith 28 1.4 The White Man’s Grave by FG (Pat) O’Dwyer 31 1.5 The Solomon Islands in the 1930s by R A Lever 36 1.6 Emergency Days, Malaya 1948-50 by R R H Horsley 40 1.7 Fish Bombs and Copra by Peter Burbrook 44 1.8 A New Town Plan for Zuru by N C McClintock 49 1.9 Lamu Town by Peter Lloyd 53 1.10 Malayan Opium Tales by David Brent 56 1.11 The Day’s Work and Odd Jobs : Rescue up the Niger by Ronald Bird (Dogon Yaro) 59 1.12 The Day’s Work and Odd Jobs : No Tax? No Bridge! by Ronald Bird (Dogon Yaro) 64 1.13 “Vive Le Royaume Uni!” by R E N Smith 67 1.14 Signed, Sealed and Delivered by John Gullick 71 1.15 Africa Past and Present by Kenneth J Forder 74 1.16 Signing Off by B D Wilson 78 1.17 Two Knights and a Chief in Central Africa by Brian Reavill 79 PART 2 : PROFESSIONAL & TECHNICAL 2.1 Reminiscences of the Leeward Islands, 1931-34 by Winifred K O’Mahony 85 2.2 The Making of a Colonial Agriculturalist by Justin Trevor Moon 91 2.3 Children of Arabia, 1944-46 by Mary Fletcher 97 2.4 A War Effort in Tanganyika by John H Harris 99 2.5 How Government Officers Became Official Opium Dealers in the Old Federated Malay States by J S A Lewis 103 2.6 Season of Green Leaves by Kuldip Rai Moman 107 2.7 A Woman Education Officer on the Niger by Joan Russell 111 2.8 Magnet Brand by J D Kelsall 116 2.9 Dura Camp by James Lang Brown 118 2.10 Resettlement of Suspected Mau Mau Sympathisers in Tanganyika by J M Ainley 121 2.11 Rain Stimulation in East Africa by B W Thompson 126 2.12 First Foot Ulendo by Ted Wilmot 130 2.13 Train to Iganga by Kuldip Rai Moman 133 2.14 A Learning Experience by Eric Cunningham 137 2.15 A Matter of Understanding by Simon Templer 139 PART 3 : TOURING, TRAVEL & TRANSPORT 3.1 Journey to Yola, 1929 by B A Babb 145 3.2 First Footsteps by John Cooke 149 3.3 Ulendo by R E N Smith 153 3.4 Jungle Trip from Grik to Temengor by Mrs M C Barkway 158 3.5 Lake Victoria Passage by J D Kelsall 165 3.6 Karamoja Journey by S Nicholl 169 3.7 Massa Gets Transport by R R Yearley 174 3.8 Journeying to Cape Guardafui by Colin Everard 178 3.9 Anuta – An Island from Paradise? by James L O Tedder 184 3.10 Not a Wisdom Tooth by Jane Shadbolt 189 3.11 Journey in the Hadhramaut by Mary Reid 193 3.12 Journey to Mongu by B H 200 3.13 Stomach Ache in the Solomons by James L O Tedder 205 3.14 A Kenya Journey by B W Thompson 210 3.15 On Being a Pacific Sea-Dog by R E N Smith 216 3.16 By Motorcycle in Uganda by S Nicholl 221 3.17 The Silver Handshake by J D Kelsall 225 3.18 Railways and Motive Power by Don Owens 227 PART 4 : DOMESTIC Home Life 4.1 The Lap of Luxury by R E N Smith 233 4.2 A Nigerian Garden by Muriel Barnett 239 4.3 It’s a Dog’s Life by Duncan McCormack 243 4.4 Mail Day by James L O Tedder 246 4.5 Supermarket – Island Style by James L O Tedder 250 4.6 Bumps in the Night by J S A Lewis 253 Wives 4.7 Who’s Afraid? by Janet Wimbush 256 4.8 One Christmas in the Gold Coast by Faith Dennis 260 4.9 Hurricane Janet, Barbados 1955 by Winifred K O’Mahony 262 PART 5 : LANGUAGE & LOCAL CUSTOMS Language 5.1 How Do You Do? by PC 49 269 5.2 Massa Gets to Speak Propa by R R Yearley 272 5.3 How Not to Learn Swahili by John H Harris 275 Local Customs 5.4 Witchcraft by R E N Smith 277 5.5 He Needs a White Cloth by A S Webb 280 PART 6 : SPORT & WILDLIFE Sport 6.1 Golf in the Nigerian Bush, 1948-65 by Iddo Hudo 285 6.2 Cricket in Sarawak by L J Holliday 288 Wildlife 6.3 The Lion by E W Bult 291 6.4 Good Advice Will Defeat Your Enemy by G R P Henton 295 PART 7 : PERSONALITIES 7.1 A Tribute to Captain A Gibb, DSO, DCM District Commissioner, British Somaliland by Roland A Hill 299 7.2 Berkeley of Upper Perak by Anon 303 7.3 Serving Mallam Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigerian Minister of Works and Transport in 1951 by R L Armstrong 306 7.4 “Wote Timamu, Effendi” (“All Present and Correct, Sir”) by Ian D St G Lindsay 311 Appendix I : Colonial Emblems and Badges 319 Appendix II : British Colonial Territories 321 Contributors 327 Territories Index 333 Subject Index 337 About the Editor 343 Foreword The Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association (OSPA) is now approaching its 50th birthday, and with it the 50th anniversary of the launching of its hugely appreciated journal, the Overseas Pensioner (OP). In addition to ensuring that the journal fulfils its primary purposes of keeping members in touch with policies, problems and decisions about Colonial Service pensions and of providing them with a detailed account of the proceedings of OSPA’s Annual General Meetings, our last two Secretaries, Douglas Stenton and David Le Breton, have each introduced a notable and much valued addition to the contents of the OP, thereby converting its status from a basic newsletter to that of a respected magazine. The first innovation was the ready acceptance by Douglas Stenton in 1980 of my suggestion that the OP should regularly carry short reviews of books about the Colonial Service. This developed into including a few members’ own memoirs. The second was David Le Breton’s practice in the 1990s deliberately to encourage more members – and their wives – keen to submit short accounts of aspects of their service, such as recruitment, first tour, touring and travel, their work and their leisure activities, and many other personal recollections of their days in the Colonial Service. Without a doubt such pen-portraits of events and personalities, some of them rendered all the more historically valuable when they focused on the experiences of pre-war Colonial Service life, provide a positive contribution to a fuller understanding of what we did and how we lived and worked. It was thus that David Le Breton succeeded in the eyes of many members in recapturing much of the spirit and readability of the Colonial Service’s one-time own Journal, Corona, which appeared monthly between 1948 and 1962 (and from which an extensive anthology was published by I B Tauris in 2001 under the title of Glimpses of Empire). In this respect the OP may be said to have proved both a welcome and a worthy successor to Corona. It is from these ‘recall’ articles in the OP that the editor has assembled the collection which comprises this excellent book. In reading and enjoying them, it is important to remain aware that these articles were not intended to be profoundly researched or meticulously reconstructed recollections of the type that make up the splendid, published, book-length memoirs of many of our members. Rather they represent the instant memory reflex of when, if you like, we are asked, “What is it that comes to mind first when you think 9 Foreword back on your life in the Colonial Service?” The result, then, is principally a matter of immediacy rather than of refinement, of what is uppermost in the writer’s instant recall. It is the reaction accurately described by several of the contributors themselves, who talk about how “some of these odd jobs are still quite vivid in one’s memory”, “a flight of fancy”, “stirred memories”, or Kuldip Rai Moman’s “I look back . A longing comes over me to see once again long- forgotten faces and places from the dim, hazy past”. Mercifully, none of the contributors seems to have been faced with that proverbial question put, I am told, by one infamous, immature (but in no way, let me assure you, imagined) student researcher who, armed with his tape-recorder but little else by way of preparation for the occasion, allegedly commented to the interviewee, “Wow! Twenty-five years in Africa! And did you learn African?” The selection assembled by the editor dexterously achieves a wide coverage of territories as well as of services.