I soon realised how right Dr. Wirtz had been to insist on my being in a properly equipped hospital for this event. Having a first baby at the age of thirty one is never a picnic, and in my case all sorts of things could have gone wrong if I hadn't been in the right place, with expert medical attention at hand. I was also lucky in that I was the only woman in the unit having a baby on that particular night, so that I had the undivided attention of the whole of the night staff. I was told of the dire happenings of two weeks previously, when there had been no less than twelve expectant mothers all in labour together on New Year's Eve, and the night staff were literally rushed off their feet trying to cope. It doesn't bear thinking about! The other thing which made me thankful to be back in England was that Penny was born two weeks early, and I don't know how I would have managed if I had still been in Africa, perhaps somewhere on the week-long journey between Geita and Nairobi. And the Mau Mau were by now occupying all the headlines in the newspapers, making that part of Africa a most undesirable area in which to be living.

I heard later from J.R. that during the months I was in England, some of the white personnel at Geita and other similar establishments around the country were commissioned as temporary Police Officers and issued with arms, to counteract the growing menace of the Mau Mau, should it spread that far south. In fact it didn't, but in England we really had very little idea what was going on out there. In April, when the baby was three months old, I was all set to fly out to Tanganyika when a letter arrived from my husband saying, in effect - forget it, I'm coming home! He had had enough of East Africa, and in particular of Geita, and had decided to return to the Gold Coast.

By this time Jomo Kenyatta, the leader of the Mau Mau rebels, had been arrested and was on trial at a place called Kapenguria, where he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The day that J.R. arrived at Nairobi Airport to fly back to London was the day that sentence was due to be announced, and apparently groups of white settlers congregated around the court house where the trial was being held, with guns and clubs in their hands, and if Kenyatta had been set free they were going to kill him. I've no doubt they would have done, too. They could see the country which they had built up and made prosperous sinking back into squalor again and their comfortable life styles disappearing like early morning mist, and this they were going to fight against with all their strength. In the event, as the world knows Kenyatta was released from prison in 1961, and became the first Prime Minister of an independent Kenya in 1963. The country was thereafter called Kenya with a short 'e' as in Kenyatta, not Keenya as it had been up till then.

When J.R. arrived back in England in April, he was able to see his daughter for the first time. But he didn't get much time to know her as in July he was off again, this time as Chief Assayer to the Ashanti Goldfields mine at Obuasi in the Gold Coast. This was a good way to the north of Marlu and about fifty miles south of the town of Kumasi, but still in the tropical rain forest. I was a little bit apprehensive about taking a small baby out to a land which was not exactly a health resort, but was re-assured by my doctor, who said that so long as we had our inoculations and took quinine regularly, all should be well. It wasn't explained to me how to administer quinine to a baby not yet weaned, but I shelved that problem until I arrived there and meantime resolved not to let any mosquito within biting distance of her.

I flew out with her in October - again! - loaded with a carry-cot full of turkish toweling napkins and my ears full of doleful prophecies from my mother and aunts, who clearly never expected to see either of us alive again. At least the flight was quick and uneventful and I was met at Kumasi Airport by J.R. with the car (sold when we left Marlu, but bought back again on his return to West Africa).

I found Obuasi a much bigger and richer place than either Marlu or Geita, in fact it still is one of the richest gold mines in the world and altogether a much more sophisticated and modern place to live. There were about 3,000 African employees and approximately 150 Europeans, not including wives and children, It was an underground mine as well as open cast, with three deep shafts, of which the newest and deepest, called Turner shaft, went straight down for 4,000 ft. There was also an overhead ropeway with buckets carrying the ore from the shaft to the mill for crushing. You had to make sure not to be walking underneath this ropeway when the buckets were passing overhead, as sometimes they were overfilled and the contents spilled out.

There was a Catholic church with a tall spire in the centre of the town, looking exactly like an English church, a mosque for the large number of Muslims who came mainly from the Northern Territories, and a two-storied stone building known as the Cloth Hall where the mammies sold the printed cloths which everyone wore. This was during the daytime. At night the hall housed a cinema for the Africans, financed and run by a Lebanese family, the Ramias, who owned a large timber concession somewhere out in the bush. The films shown were largely English or American - cowboy films were very popular! - with a few Indian ones in Hindi for the Indian population.

All around were the conical grass hills of the Gold Coast, grassy because they had been cleared and stripped of trees to make room for the mine buildings, and with valleys in between, down which welcome draughts of damp air flowed most of the time. The mine boasted a modern and very well equipped club with a good swimming pool next to it, plus tennis courts, football and cricket pitches. In spite of the heat, quite a lot of tennis was played at Obuasi. The Africans were the keen football players, played in their bare feet.

The European personnel were nearly all housed in two areas adjacent to the mine. The one on the north side was known as Happy Valley, and a newer and bigger estate on the west side was called the Lady Spears Estate. Major General Sir Edward Spears was the Chairman of Ashanti Goldfields, and he and Lady Spears made regular visits to the mine. It was on one such recent visit that she had christened the newly built housing estate.

But it did not take me very long to realise that life in the tropics with a baby was going to be vastly different from the carefree existence we had known at Marlu. As well as all the childhood illnesses which she would no doubt fall prey to in due course, there were the tropical diseases, including the ever-present malaria. And this last illness was a problem right from the start, because, as I had foreseen, no baby is going to take kindly to daily doses of quinine. I think we finally managed to get her to take it on a sugar lump, but this was difficult when she was only nine months old. I must admit that very often I gave up the battle and just hoped no infected mosquito would bite her. When she reached the age of about eighteen months we were able to persuade her to take the stuff in pill form, provided Daddy took one first and the whole operation was followed by something sweet. I watched over her every minute of the day to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, and very often most of the night as well, as she was always a very light sleeper.

As well as the constant care of the baby, arrangements had to be made for a baby sitter any time we wished to go out in the evening. I did not feel easy for a long-time at leaving her in the charge of our cook or small boy, but Jane was a willing and competent baby sitter occasionally, especially when the advertised film at the club was something that she had either seen or did not wish to see. However, gone were the days when we could zip down to the club on the spur of the moment for a couple of drinks, or a game of whist or bingo.

Most of the time I didn't mind if J.R. went down on his own (he was and is an avid film buff), but many people found it their duty to point out to me that this was not the way to go on and I must find an efficient house boy to baby-sit when required. I was therefore more than pleased one day to find a familiar figure waiting for me on the doorstep when I returned from a trip to the U.A.C. - our old cook, Kwasi, from Marlu, with- a wide grin on his face and accompanied by his wife and small daughter. He had heard through the grape vine (or the jungle drums) that his old Massa was now working at Obuasi, had uprooted himself forthwith and come north to take up his old position as cook-houseboy to Mr. Beech. His arrival solved a lot of domestic problems for me. He knew our likes and dislikes with regard to food, and I did know that he was reliable and honest and would baby-sit for us when necessary, being paid a small "dash" for his services.

The advantage of having a boy in the house whenever we went out was that we were never burgled. There was a lot of petty theft going on amongst the African community and I suppose they considered that Europeans, with their many possessions, were fair game. One young couple, Tom and Shirley Evans, were burgled three times, although they locked and bolted all doors and windows firmly before leaving for any reason.

The locals must have thought they had something worth stealing, with their house locked and barred like a fortress.

Christmas came while we were still in transit, so to speak, in the second of our temporary homes - actually still next door to the Lewis's, but on the other side. This bungalow, one of the older ones, was an unpleasant place being totally infested with cockroaches. All houses had them to some extent, but this one was the worst I came across. I woke up one morning as it was getting light, hearing Penny grizzling a bit in her small bedroom across the passage, and when I went in to her I was utterly shocked to find her mosquito netting completely covered with crawling brown bodies, one of which had penetrated the netting and was inside her cot.

In a panic I snatched her up, scattering cockroaches in all directions, and rushed back into our bedroom with her, crying out hysterically to J.R. that she was not going to sleep in that bedroom again! And she didn't. She slept in our room until our final move had taken place and we were in the new bungalow which was ours for the rest of the time we spent at Obuasi.

We had the usual hot, dry weather for Christmas, and the usual festivities. There were a dozen or more children on the mine at that time, and the children's party on December 23rd was a happy occasion. An enormous Christmas tree was erected in the club, decorated and loaded with presents for the children, all donated by members of the staff. I noticed a small teddy-bear right at the top of the tree, hanging by a red ribbon, and I said to J.R. as we sat down to await the distribution of the presents, "Oh, I do hope that Teddy is for Penny!"

It was for her. Her name was called out and we went up to collect it. Her arms went round it and this small teddy became her constant companion all through her young days,

and still exists now - completely bald and minus the red ribbon, but unmistakably a much loved teddy bear.

Glyn made her a wooden swing boat for this her first Christmas, as she was a great rocker and would always rock herself to sleep at nights. That swing boat took pride of place on our verandah and she must have spent hours in it, almost turning it upside down on many occasions. When she was feeling a bit grouchy she could swing herself into a good temper.

As for J.R., he was much happier at Obuasi than at Geita. It was a well organised, profitable mine and he had a good, reliable staff. Tommy soon followed him from Geita, and became part of the Assay Office contingent. Also at Obuasi there were plenty of things for us to do in our leisure time. The mine had its own entertainment committee and put on shows regularly in the Club.

The show which aired that Christmas was called "The Goldfield Follies" and I remember it well. As I write, I have in front of me the programme for this event, reminding me that J.R. and Tommy were joint "showmen" and took it in turns to introduce the acts. The performance was on December 24th, (after all the children had been snugged down in bed to await the visit of Santa Claus), and the programme had two or three pages of really corny jokes - you know the sort of thing:

"Notice to diners - serviettes are not provided. Wipe your hands on the dog like everyone else does"

and

"There should be clubs for women - big ones made of hardwood".

We all laughed like anything. It didn't take much to make us laugh when the day's work was done and the heat was beginning to fade away.

I thought at the time, and still think, that there was a lot of amateur dramatic and musical talent amongst the staff at Obuasi. "Goldfield Follies" was a show in the style of a revue, and everyone who could perform in any way was roped in to do his bit.

One of the wives, Doy Buckland, was an ex-professional dancer who coached several of the younger women on the camp to perform "The Toymaker's Dream", which purported to show the inside of a toyshop at night when the toys came to life and started dancing. There was a Gypsy, a Sailor, a Dutch Girl, a Soldier, and last of all a Fairy, complete with wings and a wand. This last was danced by Pat Savan, a small, dark-haired girl who, when rehearsals had only been going a short time, was going to have her second baby. But she carried on valiantly with her fairy dance, hoping that by the time Christmas came and the show was unveiled to the critical eyes of the rest of the camp, her condition would not be too obvious. However, by that time there was a distinct bulge in the region of her waist, which no careful draping of butter muslin and tinsel would conceal, and she was henceforth known as 'the pregnant fairy'.

On the occasion of this particular show, someone suggested that the ladies should join together and form a choir, and this idea went down well. I have a photo of them standing on the stage in their long evening dresses, hands held decorously in front of them - Evelyn, Mary, Anna, Betty, Gisela and two others whose names I have forgotten. Their repertoire consisted of all the favourites, like "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "We'll meet again", which might not have been quite up to Evelyn's classical standard, but were the sort of songs the audience could join in on, and did.

Being a comparative newcomer and having no particular gifts in the song and dance department (my debut on the "Leicestershire" was kept secret for a long time), I took no part in the show. but was a member of the enthusiastic audience when the first performance took place.

Penny's first birthday came round and was celebrated with a children's party in bungalow number two. A few days later we finally moved into our own bungalow.

All the bungalows were built to the same pattern, two bedrooms (one large, one small), a large sitting room with a dining recess, one bathroom and toilet, and a passage way at the back containing refrigerator and food safe. The kitchen, as at Marlu, was a separate building a few yards away from the house, where all the cooking, dish washing, ironing, etc., was done. They all had a wide verandah or stoep leading out from the living room, and there was a plentiful supply of electric fans to push the hot air around. Even so, I found the afternoons at Obuasi even more trying than at Marlu, mainly due to the problems of keeping the baby cool. Sometimes we could get to the swimming pool at the Club, but it was too far away to walk there so that until I learnt to drive the car, I solved the problem by letting Penny play in a lukewarm bath in the bungalow, very often joining her myself.

One after noon I shall remember forever was one I labeled the Afternoon of the Hornets.

I had invited several of the other wives over for afternoon tea and a bit of a chinwag about a forth coming inter-mines tennis match which was to be held at Obuasi, and which necessitated a great deal of discussion on who was to do what. That morning, as I was inspecting the kitchen and the surrounding area to make sure all was neat and tidy before the arrival of the ladies, I noticed that the round wooden cover to the dustbin was not properly in place. When I peered into it I saw to my horror that covering the inside of this lid was a large swarm of hornets, all buzzing away busily and heaving about, jockeying for position around what was presumably the queen hornet. They did not sound at all friendly.

I called Kwasi over to acquaint him of this situation in case he didn't know of it, which he didn't. He hastily suggested that I should not touch the lid but move smartly away, leaving them well alone, and then they would all go away "lef small" (i.e. pretty soon). I followed his advice, went indoors and promptly forgot all about them.

During the afternoon, when the tea party was in progress and we were sitting around in the living room with Penny on the carpet stark naked against the almost overpowering moist heat, I became aware of the sound of angry and excited voices outside, accompanied by an ominous high-pitched buzzing sound which none of us could identify for the moment. Kwasi banged the back door and called out something, and three or four hornets zoomed in and started swooping around. Almost at once I realised what had happened. The grass cutter boys had just arrived on one of their regular visits to attack the coarse grass which grew all around us, and they had managed to dislodge the dustbin lid, thus disturbing several hundred very angry hornets.

In times of crisis, sometimes my mind acts quickly.

"To the bathroom!" I yelled, and tucking the baby under one arm I fled into our small bathroom, followed by the rest of the party. We quickly shut and barred the two doors and the window, and dispatched the three hornets that followed us in. And there we stayed for the best part of one and a half hours, scared to come out and rapidly becoming hotter and stickier as the minutes ticked by. The shouts and yells from outside went on. A few minutes after we had barricaded ourselves in, we saw Kwasi streak past the window with a long trail of hornets fanning out behind him, and that was the last anyone saw of him for the next three days.

It was now nearly 5 p.m. The mine bus which came round twice a day to fetch and return the men to their jobs was almost due, and two of the girls were anxious to get back to their bungalows in Happy Valley. Therefore, feeling very brave, I ventured into our bedroom to see if the situation had improved. I couldn't see or hear a single buzzing insect, and encouraged by this I snatched a couple of sheets from our beds and draped Betty and Pat in these from head to foot, with only their noses peeping out. Thus hopefully protected against unwanted invasion, they rushed up the back path leading to the road, shrieking at the approaching bus and waving at the driver to stop. I can't imagine what the men in the bus must have thought, but J.R., walking back to the bungalow with his arms full of sheets decided we must have been playing charades, although why on earth we would see fit to make ourselves even hotter and stickier by playing an energetic game like that was not explained. There was not a hornet to be seen.

This little charade, however, had one unexpected sequel. Pat, who was then seven months pregnant, went into premature labour during the evening and had to be rushed into Kumasi hospital. But it was a false alarm. She was back home the next day and had to wait another two months for the expected event.

On afternoons when I could get some transport, either a mine car or a lift in someone else's car, I was happy to take Penny to the swimming pool and dunk her in the children's paddling section. Most of the kids learnt to swim very quickly. There were usually several of the other mine wives down at the pool during the heat of the day, and if I had been able to I would have been there every day. I was struggling to learn how to drive the car, but did not take to it very easily and sometimes had to "do a Marita", leaving it stranded when I couldn't change gear for J.R. to pick up on his way home.

We sometimes went to the pool with a Polish girl, Anna Bartnik, whose husband worked on shift and was occasionally free to join us. They were a curious couple, who seemed to find it difficult to fit into the easygoing lifestyle of most of the other employees and their families. They were young, in their early twenties, much more at home with their native language than with English, and were perhaps unfairly held up to ridicule by the younger element on the mine. His first name was Jerzi, so naturally he was known as "Jersey Joe", and their surname became corrupted to "Bostik", perhaps because everyone thought he was as thick as glue. Actually, their full surname was something quite unpronounceable to an English tongue, and Bartnik was only the shortened version. He had seen Army service of some kind during the recent War, but no one was quite sure what, as he must have been too young for regular call-up into the Forces; One of his misfortunes was that he had at some time lost an eye, and now wore an artificial one in his left eye socket.

It so happened that one afternoon when he was at the pool, this eye came loose and sank to the bottom. While Jerzi was frantically doing little dives from the side of the pool to recover it, another employee who had only been out on the Coast a few weeks and did not know about his disability, jumped out of the water holding his right hand aloft and crying out to anyone who cared to listen, "Look at this funny marble I just found on the bottom!"

Jersey Joe immediately rushed over, shouting, "That's no marble - that's my eye!", grabbing it from the other man's hand and pushing it back into place. Then he had to run indoors to find a mirror and make sure he hadn't put it in upside down.

Hysteria reigned for some time alongside the pool as the wives present had to explain to their offspring that poor Mr. Bartnik didn't have two eyes like they did, and in fact he had one which would come out, like grandma's teeth. Then they all had to be forcibly restrained from running after him to witness this interesting phenomenon. Anna, who was an irritated observer of the whole incident, was, like Queen Victoria, not amused, and stumped across the lawn after her husband, no doubt to tell him what she thought of such carelessness which had made him, once more, an object of laughter and derision.

With Ashanti Goldfields being the largest gold mining company in West Africa, it goes without saying that the incidence of gold stealing amongst the native mine workers was considerably higher than at either Marlu or Geita. In his position as Honorary Analyst to the Colonial Police Forces, J.R. was frequently involved in court cases when gold had been stolen. A typical incident would be when an African miner or treatment plant worker was caught stealing by the mine's own Police Force, for which Ashanti employed between 120 and 130 men, and was then arrested and brought to the mine Police Office and Chief Security Officer. He would then be interviewed by the C.S.O. and the African Inspector of the Mines Police, who would decide whether charges should be brought. If so, the suspect would be held in the Police Office cell until he could be collected by the regular Police Force, or taken to the town's police station under escort. Evidence would be required to support the charges, and J.R. as the official analyst would be called in. Mostly the gold stolen was in the form of metallic gold or black gold/zinc concentrate from the refinery, or in the form of amalgam as previously described. There were several ways in which attempts were made to smuggle stolen material out of the mining areas. These ranged from throwing the stuff over the surrounding fences to secreting it in bodily orifices. This latter situation caused obvious problems and metal detectors specially designed for non-ferrous metal detection were used.

One interesting incident involved one of the mining companies whose properties were in and along the banks of some of the many rivers in the territory, where the gold was recovered by dredging, the dredges being moored offshore with the workers being ferried to and fro at the beginning and end of their shifts. These employees, like the rest of the on-shore mining personnel, worked long shifts, the dredges being lit up at night with high wattage floodlights. The light bulbs themselves seemed to mysteriously disappear with great regularity, and no one had any idea what possible use the thief could have for them, until one day an astute European shift boss noticed a long thin line attached to part of the dredge which was rarely visited. Being curious he pulled this in and discovered that attached to the end of the line was one of the stolen light bulbs, with the metal contacts carefully cut off and a large cork plugging the open end. Inside there was a sizeable quantity of gold amalgam. This was taken to J.R. for examination, after which the string was broken about halfway down the line to fool the thief into thinking it was an accidental break. He fell into the trap and the local Superintendent of the Gold Coast Police Force, together with J.R. and several armed constables, netted quite a haul of characters involved in this operation.

The big problem always was to find out who was buying the gold from the Africans, and speculation was that there were several recipients - the local licensed goldsmiths, Syrian traders and Indian shopkeepers. Lest it be thought that these were the only individuals involved in gold stealing at Ashanti, there was another episode which culminated in two Italian shift bosses from the mine being sent to gaol, together with an Indian shop owner.

One day Peter Sutton, the local European Superintendent of Police, who was a friend of J.R.'s, telephoned him to say that he had a gold bar on which he wanted his opinion. He brought it round to the laboratory and over a cup of coffee gave J.R. the story. The bar, the same size as a normal gold bar, approximately 10" x 5" x 2", was typical of the products of any mines refinery and looked to be about 92% pure gold, and as the bars were normally about 1,000 troy ounces in weight, at the current price of gold at 35 U.S. dollars per troy ounce, this would amount to about 32,000 to 33,000 U.S. dollars - a very nice catch indeed for what Peter strongly suspected was a stolen bar.

However, J.R. took one look at the bar, lifted it, and said to Peter, "Feels and looks more like brass, but we'll run it through the lab." The story was that two Italian shift bosses from the mine had, over a period of time, clandestinely collected the gold in small quantities and eventually had it cast into this bar by a not-very-honest goldsmith in Obuasi village. The Italians had approached an Indian storekeeper, known by them to deal in gold smuggling, who agreed to buy the bar, obviously at a substantial discount. The Indian, being naturally suspicious, wanted an independent check, so he was taken to the goldsmith who had cast the bar, in order that it could be examined by a supposedly disinterested body. The Indian took with him the money agreed upon for the purchase, and providing the quality was confirmed, both sides could walk away with a profit. A tiny chip off one corner of the bar was removed by the goldsmith while they watched, was tested and proved to be of the quality of approximately 92%. The cash was handed over, as was the bar, and everyone was happy.

But this was not the end of the story. When the Indian tried to sell the bar to someone who again wished to have the quality confirmed before payment was made, the material did indeed prove to be brass. Such was the anger of the Indian that he very stupidly complained to the world at large that he had been cheated, and when he returned from his mission he berated the two Italians in everybody's hearing for defrauding him. The scene attracted the attention of one of the off-duty mines policemen, who knew the individuals by sight, and he called on a nearby official Police Officer to arrest the Indian and the two Italians. And the suspect gold bar ended up on Peter Sutton's desk.

J.R.'s examination proved that only one corner of the bar was composed of pure gold and the remaining 99% was brass. The goldsmith who had prepared the bar had indeed received the full amount of gold from the Italians but had cunningly substituted the gold for brass. Knowing which corner was which, he was able to "prove" the bar was pure gold by ensuring his sample was taken from the appropriate corner.

Upon receiving J.R.'s initial report, Peter Sutton and he interviewed the Italians and the Indian in gaol, and when J.R. explained the position to them, they promptly gave the name of the goldsmith. That night J.R., Peter Sutton, his inspector and a couple of constables called at the goldsmith's house when all were asleep, and examined his premises and stock. The gold which was supposed to have been used in the bar was discovered in one of the cupboards in his workshop, but the goldsmith steadfastly maintained it was his own material. Peter took away all his rather primitive records, which under the terms of his goldsmith's license he was obliged to keep, together with all the gold stocks, both manufactured and unprocessed, and they were removed to the Assay Laboratory for examination. Of course, the total gold taken from the house did not tally with the records kept, and so they had another man in gaol, making four.

In every case where prisoners were taken for suspected gold stealing and smuggling, they were brought handcuffed to the laboratory by a police escort to witness the analysis, and were able to see for themselves the resultant fine gold and were told the value this represented. In most cases this evidence alone was enough to cause the accused to plead guilty without more ado. Many cases involved taking scrapings from under finger nails for examination under the microscope, and also cutting pieces out of miners' hats where these showed signs of having been used for crushing small pieces of visible gold-bearing rock for amalgamating with mercury. There didn't seem to be any trick they didn't know about, and I suppose it is probable that a certain percentage, more careful and cunning than others, did get away with small amounts of stolen gold.

I didn't know much about this aspect of mining while I was in Africa. It wasn't the sort of thing which was likely to crop up at coffee mornings or while sitting round the pool in the afternoons, and it is only in later years when talking about Obuasi with J.R. that these stories have come out. It was in any case only a very small percentage of the Africans who became infected with gold fever and were lured into illegal activities to get their hands on the bright, shining stuff.

One afternoon towards the end of our first year at Obuasi J.R. and I, leaving Penny in the capable hands of Jane Lewis for the afternoon, took a trip on the small mine railway which linked the outlying bungalows and the open cast diggings. This was at the invitation of Ken Brown, who at that time was in charge of two or three of the mechanical shovels which loaded ore onto the railway trucks out at one of the open cast benches, and who lived in a remotely situated bungalow at the end of the railway line. His wife, Florence (always known as Dizzy), who had been such a success in the Goldfield Follies as the dancing soldier, was apt to be rather bored at being stuck out there away from the centre of things, and never lost a chance of getting a lift into the Club, or of inviting people to visit her. Ken was one of our resident comedians, and I recall him bringing the house down in some of the sketches that were put on at that time - a naturally funny man. He also seemed to be under the impression that he was living in the wild west of North America in the 1880's, judging by the clothes he wore.

On this afternoon he was wearing a check shirt and rather tight jeans, his feet were in calf-length leather boots and he had a reasonable facsimile of Wyatt Earp's 10-gallon hat on his head. He also habitually carried with him a .38 calibre revolver, more for the look of the thing than for leopard shooting, and as the small train approached his house, it was his habit to fire a shot in the air. He did this on our trip, and then, after carelessly blowing the smoke from the muzzle, casually remarked to us, "That's to tell Dizz to put the kettle on".

Unfortunately, he did this once too often. A few weeks later as he was riding home from work, surrounded by dozens of Africans coming off shift and walking alongside the track, he went through this performance and one of the boys collapsed and died - from shock, presumably.

It was a stupid thing to do, given the delicate situation in the country during those last months before independence, and there was quite a big row about it. Word went round that he had shot and killed one of the boys and there was very nearly a political "incident" over the whole business, which only simmered down when Ken was given the sack from his job. He and Dizzy were on the next boat back to England.

It so happened that J.R., Penny and I were also on this ship at the end of our tour, and it was rather a dismal trip. Ken was no longer the camp's funny man. He considered he had been very hard done by as he was now jobless, returning home to an England which had still not entirely thrown off the yoke of austerity and which had yet to enter the "never had it so good" era of the Macmillan government.