The Strange Death of Dr Kelly.....

Do you remember the strange case of Dr Kelly?

He was outed as the whistleblower on WMD, possibly by No 10.

He is the only person to have died in suspicious circumstances for over 100 years who has been denied a coroner’s inquest. Instead, the then Lord Chancellor, Blair’s mate Lord Falconer, invoked an obscure law to appoint an inquiry under Lord Hutton. This found that on 17^th July 2003 Dr Kelly went for a walk in the woods near his home where he overdosed on pain killers and cut an artery in his wrist with a pruning knife.

So what do we know about the case?

For starters, he had just been cleared by a Commons Committee of Inquiry; only that morning he had booked a return flight to Baghdad;  and he had arranged to meet his daughter that evening. He left an answer-phone message for a friend arranging to meet him 6 days later. Hardly the actions of a man intent on taking his own life, you might think.

We know from ‘The Strange Death of Dr Kelly’ by Norman Baker MP that the knife had no fingerprints on it even though Kelly wore no gloves. The items found with his body – his glasses, watch, two packets of pills and a water bottle – were also clean. It is highly doubtful whether the cut could have killed him; to kill yourself this way you must cut lengthways. If you cut across, it is most likely that the artery will self-seal unless you use a very sharp blade (not a pruning knife) and do it in the bath to prevent clotting.  There is also doubt as to whether the overdose was sufficient to cause death.

There some other disturbing features to the case.

There is strong suspicion that the body was moved. The Hutton report says that there was a photograph of the body showing most of it lying on the ground but with his head slumped against a tree. But the pathologist commissioned by the present Attorney General to review the case said that the photographs shown the feet pointing away from the tree and a considerable gap between the head and the tree. There was a third person present with the policeman who stayed with the body but he did not mention this.

This is not the only example of the police witnesses being disingenuous. Dr Kelly’s dental records disappeared mysteriously only to be found again two days after the death. The Assistant Chief Constable stated in his evidence to Hutton that no ‘extraneous’ finger-prints were found on the documents after their alleged theft. We now know there were 6 unidentified prints on the records.

It is alleged that an incident room was set up before the Dr was reported missing.

The Chief Inspector who led the investigation was not even called to give evidence to Hutton, incredible though this may seem.

The place of death, which is always included on death certificates, was not stated. It merely said ‘found dead at Harrowdown Hill’. The certificate was registered 5 weeks before the completion of the Hutton inquiry.

So what difference did it make, having an inquiry instead of an inquest? Surely this would be a more authoritative forum conducted by a distinguished judge than a mere inquest by a local coroner?

Er, no!

None of the witnesses gave evidence on oath. They could mislead the inquiry and get away with it. Two of the police witnesses did, at the least. At inquests evidence is always given on oath – with criminal penalties for lying.

The coroner’s duty is to establish how and where and when a person died. In a case of suicide he must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the deceased intended to kill himself and did so.

All this is in the public domain. But when Hutton published his report he secretly proposed that all the evidence and photographs should be classified for 70 years. Why?

There was so much public disquiet over the inadequacy of the inquiry and the suspicion that it was a whitewash that a group of distinguished medical and forensic experts lobbied for a proper inquest. When Dominic Grieve, who had previously expressed ‘serious misgivings’ about the findings of the inquiry, was made Attorney General there were high hopes that an inquest would be granted.

Not so.

In another decision taken behind closed doors, Grieve upheld Hutton. On the point about evidence on oath he said that it was not logical to quibble over the difference between swearing an oath and not doing so, which does not say much either for his knowledge of the law or for his moral sense. He said in Parliament that there is no possibility that at an inquest a verdict other than suicide would be returned.

How could he know what a coroner might have decided? An open verdict would have been a distinct possibility.

There may now be a judicial review.

So if there was an unlawful killing, whose fingerprints were on it? Mossad? They would have made a proper job of it. CIA? The blunders would suggest so, but for what possible reason? MI6? They don’t do this stuff otherwise Martin McGuiness would not still be walking around.

Cui bono?

We will probably never know!

Perry for POTUS? I don't think so!

The looming fiscal crisis in Europe and continuing high unemployment at home combine to shape economic and financial practices in government and on Wall Street. We are deep in the doldrums and grasp at the slightest whiff of good news only to be further tortured by additional reports of job stagnation and sovereign debt.

Our Governor, Rick Perry, is now running second to Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. This past week, he joined a spirited televised debate among leading contenders.

Oddly, the debate was sponsored by NBC News and Politico prompting many observers to wonder why the candidates agreed to answer questions from such staunchly democratic organizations. But they did and at one point Newt Gingrich chastised the NBC and Politico presenters for posing questions intentionally designed to generate internal fighting among the candidates.

Rick managed to alienate a large section of America by attacking our Social Security system. He referred to it as a Ponzi Scheme constructed on lies. He was making a valid point, but it was sensationalized and poorly articulated to the point where working Americans reacted against Rick instead of his criticism.

He will spend the remainder of his candidacy regretting and attempting to rectify this statement.

Immediately after his remarks, Romney cooly remarked that our SS system is important to America and does not need to be suspended, but rather improved. Social Security is one of the few government programs that sits well with the American people.

The flagrant abuse of SS funds collected by Government and then pilfered to finance this and that bill is a very sore issue. So are the large increases in the percentage taken from salaries.

When SS first began, deductions amounted to 2% of salaries or wages with 1% being paid by the employer. Today it is 12.4% of salary with both employee and employer still paying half. There is a limit, however, and annual earnings over $106,000 are no longer subect to the payroll deduction.

The viability of the system is projected to last until the early 2030's at which time there will be insufficient funding to finance payouts to retirees.

Obama the Eloquent

America is stuck on remembering 9/11 just now and both written and filmed accounts have taken possession of the media. This typical habit of overkill needs review along with its flaunting hyperbole and nauseous repetition. Concurrently, a massive hunt is going on for some mystery terrorists who reputedly  intent to celebrate the 9/11 anniversary their own way.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our governor has just leased an enormous DC10 that was converted to a tanker capable of dousing some 12,000 US gallons of water and retardants on our prairie fires at a single go. It is bloody unlikely that we will get any help from mother nature in the form of precipitation, so we need to take drastic measures, including cloud seeding. Thus far, no success possible due to a lack of clouds.

Obama delivered another rhetorical masterpiece this week at an address to both Houses in which he introduced his newly concocted American Jobs Act. On such occasions, the Vice President and Speaker of the House are seated directly behind the President. It was one of those speeches in which the audience feels compelled to applaud after every third sentence and in this instance also stand up when doing so.

The division between our two parties was fully documented by the reactions of VP Biden and Speaker Boehner. Biden must have overheated hands as he bobbed up and down clapping wildly with a huge smile across his face. In contrast, Boehner sat mostly still looking grumpy and somewhat tentative. I could not determine if his reactions were genuinely inspired by policy differences, or by Boehner's fear that his applause may not be taken kindly by Congressional Conservatives and Tea Party members.

I dare say our prairie fires and tenacious drought will be ancient history by the time anything is legislated by way of the Jobs Act. Congress remains moribund. The slightest sign of compromise by a Senator or Representative is immediately punished by party whips, caucus leaders and members of extreme coalitions. More than once, poor John Boehner has been flogged into line by the Tea Party.

Even O's enemies concede he is a gifted orator. I would also render tribute to his speech writers. I believe the constant criticism about his using teleprompters is more indicative of envy than anything else. O's timing, seamless delivery, tone and body language combine to make him an effective figure. The opposition cannot abide such presence and works extremely hard to discredit everything about him.

The scum rises to the top......

I started to read Peter Oborne’s piece in the DT about Hague’s revival of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, but by the time I got to the bit about dumping the F&CO library I was in such a fury that I had to stop before I burst something.

What an incredible act of mindless vandalism!

This contained all the treaties and key documents since Tudor times. As an historical treasure trove it was beyond price, a unique record that Harvard or Yale would kill for. How much more Labour crime is going to come out in future years? Plenty is now emerging after the fall off Gadaffi. ( Matt’s cartoon in the DT the other day was a corker showing G dashing across the desert in his jeep with the caption ‘I’ve been asked to appear in ‘Celebrity Big Brother!’).

I suspect all this was the work of the right-on Permanent Secretary at the F&CO, who got a peerage as a reward for his destructive term. Another smart move was to abolish the language school, as well as kicking out the precision of written and spoken English that was perfected there and substitute it with jargon and Birt-speak so that nobody outside can understand what the hell they are talking about.

And why has all this only just come out? Where were the historians from telly, the conservationists, the protectors of the national heritage and all the other self-appointed noise-makers who would be marching on Whitehall for less?

And now we have Ken Clarke, who seems to be getting increasingly dotty, seriously proposing that TV cameras should be allowed into trials. At this time the suggestion is televising the Judge’s summing up only (that should make for riveting viewing), but we all know how adept are our masters at the ‘thin end of the wedge’ treatment.

So are we to see trials turned into a version of ‘Celebrity Big Brother’; ‘I’m a villain; get me out of here’?

This government seems to match in incompetence what the last lot had in sheer wickedness.

I suppose it all goes to show that the scum always rises to the top.

Did I really mean that?

On a lighter note, when I had a day-job I used to collect complaints letters that did not exactly express their true meanings. Here are some examples:

‘Our kitchen floor is damp. We have 2 children. We would like to have a third. Please send a man around to do something about it’

‘The toilet seat is cracked. Where do I stand?’

‘It's the dogs’ mess that I find hard to swallow.

‘I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off’.

‘I wish to complain that my father twisted his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage’.

‘I am writing on behalf of the sink, which is running away from the wall’.

‘The sink is blocked and we can’t bath the children until it is fixed’.

‘Please send someone to mend our broken path. Yesterday my wife tripped over it and now she is pregnant’.

‘This is to let you know that our lavatory is broken and we can’t get BBC 2 TV’.

Small naval battle; not many hurt.....

Now for something completely different.

When I was working in Malawi 50 years ago I heard the comical story of the very first British naval victory of WW1 that took place on Lake Nyasa. About 25 years later I met a contemporary when I was in Australia and we started to chat about the event; He told me that in fact he had an original copy of the eye-witness account which was written many years later and  only published in the Nyasaland Journal. He later sent me a copy which I recently dug out of my archives.

How he managed to get hold of the original is a mystery. However, I visited Mangoche in 1990 and went to the Yacht club. When the Guen was broken up the ship’s bell was hung in the club, and I guess all other memorabilia was also kept there, including  this account.

At independence these were all ‘liberated’ and I was told that the bell is now resident in a yacht club ‘somewhere in England. I guess thus was how the paper came to be preserved.

I reckon that it has seen the light of day in the past, as it may well have been the inspiration for ‘The African Queen’ and ‘Shout at the Devil’.  When my late friend George Walker owned Elstree Studios I tried to persuade him to film this, but he went pear-shaped first!

Although the story is intrinsically funny, if Rhoades had not taken out the Weismann, von Lettow-Vorbeck might well have won the East African campaign.

It is quite a long story and I have edited it only to correct spelling errors etc. It is worth persevering with.

*******************

I should state at the outset that I have written this account of the 'naval battle’, which took place on Lake Nyasa shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, entirely from memory and only in response  to numerous requests. I believe it to be substantially correct because the adventure made a great impression on me at the time and it remains in my mind's eye as a sequence of pictures; it is, however, possible that after all these years some of these may be slightly out of focus, resulting in errors of detail, in which case I crave the reader's indulgence.

I was on ulendo north of Mount Mangoche in the South Nyasa district when, on July 31st 1914, I received a telegram from Zomba ordering me to report immediately at Port Mangoche for active service.  This fort was at that time an outpost of the King's African Rifles and was occupied by a Company (four sections of 25 men) commanded by Captain Griffiths, a very able soldier whom I was destined to know very well.

When war was declared on August 6th, Griffiths marched the Company to the Bar, headquarters of the Marine Transport Department some six miles north of Port Johnston, which automati­cally became an Advanced Base from the future 'front'. We had a difficult time getting the 'artillery down the steep and rocky slopes of the mountain as specifically ordered - it consisted of two muzzle-loading cannon, seven pounders, I think. These, with one monster 9-pounder and two ancient maxims, comprised the only fire-arms other than rifles with which we cheerfully went to war.

At the Bar we joined forces with two other companies of K.A.R. under Captains Collins and Portal, and sundry very recently recruited details mostly commissioned and attached to that regiment. The N.V.R. (Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve) was still being organized in Zomba and their uniforms designed and issued} these consisted solely of two yellow shoulder straps stencilled 'N.V.R.* which were sewn to the members' own clothing.

The Marine Transport was a Government Department having the following European personnel: Commander Rhoades (Lieut. R.N.R.), Chief Officer, with Tait as his Number One, Haynes, Chief Engineer, with Urquhart and Fernandez as his assistants, and lastly, Bishop, clerk and storekeeper, later the hero of the battle of Karonga. The fleet comprised the Guendolen (so spelt) , Pioneer and Dove, in commission, with Queen Victoria  and Chauncey Maples  under charter.

Our only frontier with German East African (now Tanganyika Territory) was west of the northern end of the Lake, beginning at the mouth of the Songwe River, some 20 miles north of Karonga in the North Nyasa District which was at that time the property of the Chartered Company. This five-man station Karonga, with normally two officials and three civilians, was therefore the objective, whether for offence or defence, of Nyasaland's tiny army, and as there was no road usable by wheeled traffic and, incidentally, not half a dozen vehicles other than ox-carte, its L. of C. must perforce be by way of the Lake and this was unusable as long as any enemy ship, however lightly armed, was at large. 

The Germans had four ports on the northern half of the Lake, two of them on the flank of shipping from the south. No-one was surprised, therefore, when Rhoades received a telegram from Sir George Smith, Governor .and Commander-in-ordering him to 'sink, burn or otherwise destroy the Hermann von Weismann, the German 'gun-boat' though the belligerency of this signal was somewhat tempered by its conceding Passage, which warned Rhoades that under circumstances was he to risk the Guendolen.

The armament of the Guen consisted of a 3-pounder Hotchkiss mounted in a sponson immediately abaft the break of the fo'c'sle on the main deck and, if I remember correctly, two Nordenfeldts on the boat deck. The Weismann had only a one-pounder but this mounted on the fo'c's'le so that its field of fire more than compensated for its lack of weight.

Our 3-pounder immediately presented two problems, the whereabouts of its ammunition and the lack of a gunner; eventually Bishop found the ammo, in boxes painted a Naval grey and labelled by somebody "Spares", and Providence supplied the gunner: an assistant in the A.L.C. store at Fort Johnston volunteered the information that he had been trained as a seaman-gunner in the Clyde Division of the R.N.V.R., though he modestly admitted that he was not very sure how much he had remembered of it all.  Unfortunately I forget the name of this gallant Scot but I think he was usually called Jock. 

It so happened that while a student I had for a time been a P.O. in the London Division, R.N.V.R. and between us we were able to evolve some sort of drill for the benefit of the beaming crew supplied by Rhoades from among his "pirates".  Jock promoted himself to Gunlayer.

Normally the crew of the Guen consisted of two Europeans (Rhoades or Tait, in command, Haynes or Urquhart, engineer) and many Africans, deck-hands and stokers; most of the former were competent helmsmen who knew every inch of the Lake and could con her with their eyes shut.  When we put to see on this occasion, however, both engineers were on board, Rhoades was in command with Jock as gunner and me as surgeon, and we carried a section of askari as Marines (pro tern) under the command of Beaumont, a P.W.D. official usually known as Champagne Charlie, because he sported a monocle, recently commissioned as Second Lieut. K.A.R. (Temp).)

It must have been during the second week of August that we sailed from the Bar en-route for Nkata Bay where Rhoades hoped to be able to obtain recent news of the Weismann’s whereabouts from some of the Atonga plying to and fro across the Lake in canoes.  It was only after sailing (perhaps when wooding at Nkudzi Bay) that someone commented on the vulnerability of the main steam-pipe between boiler and engine where it rose in a graceful curve above deck. Haynes and his merry men remedied this, we hoped, by hanging some spare plates round it at different angles designed to deflect bullets.

Meantime, I, probably inspired by a former visit to Nelson's Victory, was busy converting the forward into a 'cockpit' for the reception of casualties. It contained a large number of bags of rice (crew rations) which I had piled from floor to deckhead after the manner sandbags in the hope that they would afford me at least some protection while attending the wounded on my camp bed erected under the only light, amidships.

On arrival at Nkata the most recent information obtainable was that three weeks previously the Weismann was at Sphinxhaven. almost due east of Nkata across the Lake, hauled out of the water on a slipway having some new plates fitted.  It seemed too much to expect that she could be in this undignified position but Rhoades decided that the chance, however remote, must be taken, risk or no risk; as he said, this was the deepest part of the Lake (2300 feet, 800 below sea level).

As we approached the land, now running dead slow, and turned north along the coast. Jock called my attention, quite unnecessarily I may say, to the multitude of campfires all along the shore, it looked as if the whole German army was awaiting us. Actually they were heaps of burning rubbish in the gardens.

The bay of Sphinxhaven was made into a harbour by a peninsula of huge rocks enclosing its southern part and crowned by a large boulder said by the more imaginative to resemble the Sphinx, This cape afforded us useful cover as we circled it but I for one had a sinking feeling below my belt because it afforded even better cover for machine gun or other lethal weapon in the hands of an enemy.  One shot from the veriest pip-squeak of a gun, would suffice to sink us.  The same applied to the Weismann, of course, for neither vessel was intended for other than native warfare.

As we cleared the point and swung towards the bay, the swell caught us broadside on and the Guen, wide in the beam but shallow of draught, began to roll, not really heavily but enough to embarrass an amateur gunlayer.  Then simultaneously a voice from above rapped out the order 'Open Fire, 2000 yards', and the Weismann slid into view, a sitting duck, still on the slipway. Jock belted away making a lot of noise between duds, partly owing to some overestimation of the range and partly, no doubt, to the rolling of the Guen, all the first shots that were no misfires soared away over the hills behind the target probably 'scaring the lights out of' peaceful villagers far inland.

The ammunition was Victorian in date and about one in four was dud so that when Jock found that none exploded during the period of waiting, before opening the breech decreed by the Lords of the Admiralty, he soon dispensed with that formality altogether though he barked at his crew if they delayed in dumping a misfire overboard. Then without warning, just as Beaumont had strolled over to offer advice Jock scored a hit on the slip, a shower of splinters went up and everyone cheered,

That was the only score - a bye, so to speak, for immediately afterwards a small white dinghy put off from the shore, in which was a European clad in a single and a pair of shorts pulling furiously straight for the :Guen.  Rhoades ordered ‘Cease Fire" and a blessed silence fell.  It was his drinking pal, the skipper of the Weismann with whom every meeting was a party. The accommo­dation ladder was lowered and Rhoades descended from the bridge to receive him at the gangway.

The Dinghy came alongside and. its infuriated occupant, having flung his oars into the boat, leaped to his feet and shaking both fists above his head, exclaimed, ‘Gott for damn, Rhoades, vos you drunk?

The news that Der Tag had arrived had not yet reached him.

Rhoades invited him aboard and as he stepped on deck we onlookers moved in behind him, forestalling any complication such as an attempted escape.  When Rhoades informed him rather apologetically that he was a prisoner, one could sec his anger turn to horror as he realised his fatal mistake? he seemed to shrivel and allowed Rhoades to usher him up the ladder and into a cabin without a word.  We all felt very sorry for him, and Rhoades as well for that matter.

The Guen was very vulnerable where she lay at anchor close to the shore and Beaumont picked the ridge bordering the "beach with his askari: if any troops had happened to be on their way to occupy the port they would now be advancing at the double to investigate the cause of all the noise. Meantime Haynes and his engine-room staff were swarming round the Weismann, inside and out, dismantling every removable part, each being grabbed, passed to the waiting deckhands and dumped aboard the Geun. 

At the same time some miscreants were wandering about in search of souvenirs which might otherwise fall into the hands of the locals after our departure. I secured the clock in the chartroom and a very good one it proved to be.  Every single African in the immediate vicinity of the Weismann had vanished at the first cannon shot but the German engineer was discovered under Ms African-type bedstead in the grass shack in which he and his Captain had been living for coolness sake.  He offered no resistance when winkled out, and was put into the bag.

We returned to Nkhata that afternoon in order to wood and also to send a telegram from the Company's office to Chinteche. Rhoades detailed Beaumont and me to draft the message and after obtaining his approval to put it into code, using the old-fashioned book whose contents were doubtless known in all parts of Europe.  All I remember of his signal is that the first sentence read, 'Weismann taken completely by surprise', and that 'silver-grey' mean 'stop’.

We learnt later that anything our message lacked in drama was supplied by Fleet Street for it arrived during the black days prior to the Marne and was splashed as ‘Naval Victory on Lake Nyasa' even in the sober Times.

Imperial echoes..........

I have read a number of reviews of a new book about the British Empire. The writer is a young guy of Ghanaian parentage. He is public school and Oxbridge, a Tory MP and a rising star. What fun it would be if the first black PM was black! He says that being black and 6ft 4ins he is easily noticed by the Speaker!

But I shall not buy the book. I have more personal experience of how the Empire was run than he does because I have lived it. I have little patience with people who pontificate about stuff when they have no experience. Only the other day an ‘expert’ was pontificating about the Cape Coloureds being the offspring of unions between Afrikaners and the Bushman aka San people. Complete bollox! They are a mixture of black, white and SE Asian. Afrikaans was originally the language of the Cape Coloureds when the ‘Hollanders’ spoke Old Dutch. The San were treated as vermin by white and black alike. They were driven off their ancestral hunting grounds and had to take refuge in some of the most inhospitable country in Africa, the Kalahari and the Great Namib deserts. They are now being persecuted in Botswana, but this being black-on-black nobody much cares.

It seems that his general theme is that the wicked men who ran the Empire were a bunch of overbearing, bullying snobs who treated their subjects with contempt. Not so in my experience.

He only deals with Nigeria when writing about Africa, although Africa was the main continent of colonial administration. And it was not typical in that basically it was governed on a minimalist basis as in India.

In my experience the people who really administered the African colonies were the District and Assistant District Commissioners. They were extremely able, dedicated and resourceful people. They led lives that were often very isolated, with maybe 3 whites – the DC, ADC and a Police Inspector - manning a ‘boma’ hundreds of miles in the bush. They were required to become fluent in the local language within 6 months or it was ‘on your bike’. The ‘sleeping dictionary’ was often the chosen avenue of instruction. If they got posted to different colonies at the end of each 3-year tour they became very multi-lingual and often very fed up!

The DC was administrator, magistrate, engineer, arbitrator, and much else besides. His wife was often school-teacher, medic and general factotum. They were not allowed to get married until they were 26; but they were expected to find a wife on their first long home leave (6 months).

On first arrival in the colonial capital, the new ADC would be given a horse and baggage train and told to push off into the bush and find his boma maybe a 100 miles or more away. The DC frequently went off on ulendo – a tour of his district to collect taxes, resolve disputes, dispense justice etc. It is reputed that the role of the ADC was to minister to the needs of Mrs DC whilst the boss was away, but that might be merely anecdotal.

Their living conditions were pretty basic – no electricity, cooking over a wood-burning stove, water from a borehole, sanitation via a pit latrine. And no tarmac roads; in fact few roads of any kind.

Their shared characteristic was their dedication to their people, and the unshakeable integrity of their administration.

What is not appreciated is that in essence most of the Empire lasted only the span of a single lifetime. Let’s take Malawi as an example, as this was one of the countries in which I lived during colonial times.

Wikipedia says it was colonised in 1891. It wasn’t. It became a protectorate in 1891 at the request of the tribal chiefs to protect them from the ravages of slave-traders, Arabs in the north, Portuguese in the south. To show how short was the colonial era, I met an old askari at the veterans’ home in Zomba who had taken part in the last battle against the slavers at Fort Johnston in  the 1890s. I have a photo of Jumbe, the leader of the slavers, with his entourage, all with firearms. He reneged on the peace-deal after the battle and Harry Johnston promptly hanged him!

I also met  an ancient clergyman, Canon Winspear, who had accompanied a missionary ship,  the ‘Chauncey Maples’ which was portered in sections from Beira to Lake Nyasa at about the same time. The ship is still there.

In 1891 the entire colonial administration consisted of only 10 people. If the locals had been unhappy with the way they were governed the 10 would have lasted about as many minutes. Independence came 73 years later.

There was never any large scale white settlement and the early settlers, such as they were, bought their land from the tribal chiefs. Typically, the first brick building in Blantyre, the commercial capital was the Blantyre sports club, then the magnificent church of St Michael and All Angels together with the Henry Henderson Institute, a secondary school for African boys. All these actually preceded the establishment of British rule, so the mazungu obviously has a pretty good relationship with the Africans.

Those who criticise the colonialists for exploiting but not developing Africa should ask themselves how much it takes to bring people up to modern standards who often had not progressed as far as the invention of the wheel or formal written language. For example, in the late 1950’s my brother-in-law, who was an Inspector in the Northern Rhodesia Police, was tasked with moving a small tribe (called the Batonka, I think) out of the Zambezi valley as the waters rose from the construction of the Kariba Dam. He found himself at the receiving end of the last impi charge in colonial history.

Afterwards, they had to be persuaded to wear clothes; it was so hot in the valley that they had never been necessary.

This is very untypical, of course. The marvellous Great Zimbabwe is an architectural masterpiece that could only have been created by a sophisticated civilisation. The problem is it had long since disappeared by the time the whites arrived in 1890. We don’t know who they were or what happened to them, but my guess is that the population simply outgrew the food supply. We do know that the Portuguese were mining there for gold in the 16^th century.

Race discrimination? Plenty, but it was mostly social rather than political and at a time when you would still see ’No coloured, no Irish, no dogs’ signs in UK and USA, so this was a reflection of the era. And American military units were still segregated, and ‘coloreds’ made to sit at the back of the bus at a time when most colonies were free. Oddly enough, it was the memsahibs who were most colour-prejudiced. India is not a topic of mine, but I understand that discrimination scarcely existed in the early days, and intermarriage even the most exalted levels was completely acceptable. It was only when the ‘fishing fleet’ of young women looking for husbands began to arrive in India that it became frowned upon but not eliminated.

One very noticeable factor was that wives freshly out from the UK started off by fawning over their poor, downtrodden African domestics and ended up virulent racists, whereas the old-timers rubbed along quite easily. Personal relationships were much more complex than they would appear at first sight. For example, I met a old guy some years ago who had arrived in Nyasaland in 1944 as an Agricultural Extension Officer, mentoring Africans in improved agricultural techniques. He stayed on after independence.

When he first arrived he took on a ‘kitchen toto’, a small boy who helped around the house; 45 years later they were still together. He told me that every Xmas he will tell the ‘boy’ that it was time he retired and each time the reply was ‘But who will look after you?’ and that was the end of the conversation for another year. The relationship was no more ‘master and servant’ than Jeeves and Wooster.

The book maintains that colonial policy was made on the hoof and that this was a reason for post-colonial chaos. Rubbish. The chaos in India after independence was not caused by the Raj but by the lack of it. Partition was the cause; this only came onto the agenda late in the day because Ali Jinnah threatened to derail the negotiations otherwise. It was always contemplated that there would be one India. In any case, India as a nation did not exist before the Raj; it was a collection of fairly small states ruled by maharajahs and such. Britain created it.

There was no post-colonial chaos in British Africa, but only chronic and serious misgovernment that continues to this day. You can’t blame colonialism for your problems half a century on. The population of Africa has mostly been born into ‘freedom’, and that includes freedom to make a complete balls of things.

And colonial policy was admirably clear. It was that the interests of the native population were pre-eminent, and that they were to be encouraged to develop at their own pace and in their own way. The French, of course, tried with some success to convert their Africans into Frenchmen.

As for Britain ‘dashing for the exits’, as is suggested, the decolonisation process actually took 35 years.

The whole justification reminds me of John Cleese in ‘Life of Brian. ‘What did the Romans ever do for us? Apart from law and order, water, roads, sanitation, sport.......’

The Brits did all these things, the big difference being that the Romans had 1000 years and we had about 80.

My firm belief is that the British Empire was the greatest civilising mission since the Romans.

Our enduring legacy was the English common law and the English language. Imagine trying to get on in this day and age speaking only Chichewa, Bemba or Yao.

Oh to be in England.

Back again in the Land of the Falling Rain after a brief trip to England. Fortunately it was fine on IOM all week so the blasted motor bike races went off on schedule, otherwise we would not have been able to get from the airport to home as the buggers are authorised to close the circuit roads up to 9 p.m. if rain delays the start of a race. And we left England in shirt sleeves and today it’s –yes – raining here.

Only two bikers killed this year. One was a 71-year old competitor; the old fool should have been home with his grandchildren.

We had several memorable lunches, including one of my favourite venues, The George at Stamford, a fine old coaching inn that still has separate lounges marked ‘London’ and ‘York’ from  the days when the stage coaches used to stop there. The outcome was that in five days I managed to gain 3 lbs.

Impressions? This was our first trip to UK for a couple of years apart from our week-end garden party outing to Yorkshire in May 2010. Forget all the doom-and-gloom stories about UK being on the bones of its arse; prosperity shouts at you. The smallish town where we stayed has every  major retail outlet and the ones we visited were crowded with affluent-looking shoppers. The parking areas where our son lives are replete with up-scale SUVs, BMWs and the like; never a banger to be seen.

Dress styles have changed in the last ten years since we lived there. From scruffy-chic it is now sexy-chic. England is full of stunning women who know it and dress the part. How times have changed! When I was at school 60 years ago, there were perhaps two girls in the whole school who just made it as ‘pretty’. The rest were dogs. And with few exceptions they were all totally flat-chested. Today even the 14 year-olds are bustin out all over.

The gorgeous gal who sold me a couple of shirts had the most amazing tan. I commented that she sure didn’t get that in Huntingdon. She said she sure didn’t and gave me a whopping discount. There are Mediterranean tans everywhere, suggesting that hard times have not stopped the annual exodus to Spain. And it is reported that the average British woman has 34 pairs of shoes.

But the world continues on its dotty way.

As we predicted, the Great Storm was a bit of a wash-out. That didn’t stop the loonytoons from saying it was all Obama’s fault or that it was God’s, as a punishment for out wicked, wicked ways. Shades of the puritans and the Salem Witch Trials!

And Big Brother Watch has just released the top ten dottiest Elf ‘n  Safety bans of the year. Here they are:

1.Murray Mount closed at Wimbledon because of rain
2. Butlins ban on dodgem cars from bumping into each other
3. A ban on Royal wedding street parties
4. The removal of a bulky TV from a pensioner’s home
5. Carnivals with fancy dress parades
6. Kite flying on a popular tourist beach in east Yorkshire
7. Stopping pupils from going on playground monkey bars
8. Using pins to secure commemorative poppies
9. School football games without a sponge ball
10. Children banned from the sack race on sports day.

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'You're dead; it was in the news!'

Both Haymakers were working together in Kingston, Jamaica, on a project that was being carried out by a firm of German consultants, the MD of which was Dr Dewdrop (for want of a better name). He told us his favourite traveller’s tale.

His speciality was trade missions to ‘developing’ countries, and on one assignment he was covering the Caribbean with a party of about 20 fellow Germans.

They were due to depart from Cuba to Jamaica on a commuter flight, but when they arrived at check-in they were told that they had all been  bumped to the next flight some hours later because their flight was over-booked. Dr D remonstrated that his could not possibly be correct because they had booked every seat months ago.

The authorities were adamant. They were going on the later flight, no arguments.

They eventually arrived at their hotel in Kingston in the early hours of the morning. Dr D followed his usual practice of phoning his wife to report his safe, if late, arrival. It would now be about 9 a.m. in Germany.

When his wife answered the phone, she said ‘Who is calling?’ ‘It’s me, you silly old hausfrau’ he replied (or words to that effect).

‘But this is not possible’ she replied ‘You are dead!’ (Dr D did not disclose whether there was a note of disappointment in her voice), ‘It was in the news’.

The plane had crashed into the Caribbean shortly before landing at Kingston, with no survivors.

It later transpired that the plane had been carrying a bomb. The Germans must have been bumped to make way for a VIP. But somebody wanted him out of the way.

When Dr D met up with the rest of the party, his first action was to advise them all to phone home immediately.

This was not the end of their drama.

They were put on a BA flight out of Kinston heading for London. Dr D had a window seat overlooking the wing. About a half-hour into the flight, he looked out of the window just in time to see an engine explode!

They made an emergency landing at an airport that was not equipped for ground-handling passengers on a 747, so they had to stay on board for the considerable time it took to replace the engine.

As a footnote to this, and in(almost) similar vein, he told me that when he was Mayor of his city, he had to deal with the Case of the the Deceased Pensioner.

An old lady arrived to collect her pension at the Rathaus. It was refused. When she asked for a reason she was told that it was because she was dead. Her corporeal presence made no impression upon the official. He had her death certificate in front of him so, according to the regulations, she had definitely snuffed it.

Dr D solved the impasse when he discovered that another woman of the same name and age was the real ex-pensioner. But rules is rules!