Highly acclaimed, The Shamba Raiders is one man’s fascinating account of the eternal struggle to preserve East Africa’s herds of game which were – and still are- increasingly threatened by modern civilization, poaching, war and the economic and political changes which swept Africa during the middle of the last century. Bruce Kinloch is probably the…
John Miller was one of the last four young administrative officers to be sent to Africa. In the twilight of The British Empire. He arrived in Swaziland in 1962 to take up a position in the British Colonial Service. For the next three years, his life was nothing if not varied as the Administration worked…
In 1965, when Haile Selassie decided Ethiopia must have National Parks and Nature Reserves, he appointed John Blower as his adviser and senior warden. What followed was a formidable challenge: struggling with a complex, corrupt and medieval bureaucracy in Addis Ababa and the shifting allegiances of warlords and brigands in the countryside. But the magnificence…
When, in 1949, John Blower arrived to take up the post of Assistant Conservator of Forests in Tanganyika, he received a terse note of welcome from his new chief saying “take over Southern Province”. He was not to meet him for another twelve months. It was an appointment which led to a remarkable life in…
An account of the East African Game Departments is told through the eyes and memories of Game Wardens who have each written of their experiences with the Department during the last half of the twentieth century. Tragedy, farce and hardship are mixed in equal measure with a real concern for the animals well-being, as well…
Margaret Collyer’s beautifully written autobiography describes her life as an artist and pioneer farmer in Kenya during the first half of the twentieth century. Margaret Collyer graduated from the London Royal Academy of Art in 1898. Having augmented her Scholarship by painting a number of commissions, she quickly gained a reputation as one of the…
Following the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, a State of Emergency was declared in September 1953. Twelve hundred police officers, mainly from Britain, were appointed on two-year contracts as assistant inspectors then inspectors in an effort to bring stability to the colony. The Security Forces were portrayed in an unfavourable light in Britain, this fascinating…
In March 2000, Philip Winter was approached to act as Chef de Cabinet to the ex-President of Botswana, Sir Ketumile ‘Quett’ Masire, who had been selected to chair and facilitate the talks to which three main warring parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had agreed in the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement in 1999. The…