The Deputy Prime Minister

Following my posted blog "Mum, mum where are we going mum" I was amazed to find a reference to Sierra Leone on the news that very evening. The news item stated that Sierra Leone was one of the poorest countries in Africa. Brought about through the ravages of a civil war, the burden of third world debt, and the oldest problem of all. "Corruption".

As a twelve-year-old back in 1958, I was not of course aware of such things. To me the country was in the main a scenically beautiful place, and provided a potential for great adventures. Of which there were many, some just real good boyish fun, some that were bloody dam dangerous, and other situations that involved other army families in the Freetown community.

I have often thought about my childhood friends, where are they now? The only childhood pal that went on to achieve fame was a certain "Glynn Pardoe", who played football for Manchester City and England. The only adult that I know of that went on to greater things was our scoutmaster "Ronnie Sampson" who was at the time a staff sergeant in the pay corps. Ron after leaving the army as a Major went on to a distinguished career in the diplomatic corps. Following, the end of the Falklands War, Ron was installed as Deputy Governor of the Falkland Isles from 1978- 1981. Now well into retirement Ron still gives talks on cruise liner’s mainly in Caribbean waters and the South American and Panama Canal area’s.

So over the years I have tried to keep a casual interest in Sierra Leone. One reason for this is that I would have loved to go back to see what had become of the place. There were of course a number of reasons why this as never happened. The first being, I was fourteen and a half when we left Freetown, so between then and the many years later as a married man with two kids, it wasn’t ever likely to happen. The second reason in the mid eighties through to the late nineties, at a time when it would have been financially practical to visit, one of the bloodiest civil war did rage throughout the country.

And the third reason, How long do you think they keep records of undesirables? Yes that’s me a fourteen year old undesirable. I suppose, if I had to plead my case today this is how it might go.

For some weeks Dad had been feeding a rather nice brown and white mongrel dog, which had parked itself under the window of his office. It was there in the morning and still there as he left for home. Now there were no shortages of dogs in Freetown, but they were skin and bone or rabid, and attracted fly’s in swarms. But to find a dog that looked healthy and friendly was about as rare as Rocking Horse manure. Then one afternoon the dog started to follow dad’s Land Rover, through the camp, out of the gates and on the road to home. Well what would you do? Dad stopped the vehicle and on jumps the dog.

On arriving home my brother Stewart who was two and a half at the time, immediately took to the dog. Perhaps because he had never been so close to a dog. For my part it was something I had always wanted, but it was never going to happen not whilst we were in Africa. So everyone was happy including Mum. We gave our new dog the name of Patch, because of his brown and white patchy markings.

So for the next six months both Stewart and myself spent many happy hours on the beach, in and around our compound, walks through the local village,and what a fantastic guard dog, he could bark for England, If any strangers approached the bungalow we knew well in advance.

Arriving home from school one day, I was surprised to find that Patch wasn’t waiting at the compound gate, which is where he normally met me from school every day. "Mum where’s Patch Mum" " Don’t know son I’ve not seen him since coming back on the shopping bus". (A three-ton army truck). Right, I’ll go and have a look in the village. Not really a clever thing to do alone, but I had to find my dog.

The local village was called Willberforce and although it was only a few hundred yards from the bungalow. I suppose a hamlet would be a better description then village, there were about a dozen houses (brick built) and about twenty shanties made from corrugated iron sheets. A central well which also supplied the water which ran into a sunken sump to wash their clothes in, and also doubled as the local baths, and a small shop selling just about anything the Syrian owner could get his hands on.

Well after about an hour of searching, which must have been about four or five times round the village, I returned home hoping that Patch would have turned up by now, That however was not the case. Not to long after I got home Dad arrived home, once he had been told that Patch was missing, he too went out to look for him. On returning, he told me that the chances of finding Patch were very slim indeed. In fact a really healthy dog with plenty meat on his ribs, was probably in someone’s cooking pot by now. Stewart was devastated, I was reduced to floods of tears. And so we resolved that that was the end of Patch.

About a month later, who should be sat under dad’s window. Yes got it in one. "Patch" Not quite as plump as he was and had some small lacerations on his hind quarters. But this was quite definitely Patch. So Patch is brought home to be bathed and cuts treated. You had to be there to see the fuss he made of the whole family.

Five days later the S- -T hit the fan, outside the bungalow was a very large black Rolls Royce, the chauffeur steps out, and opens the door to let out a very grand coloured gentleman, which you didn’t tend to see to many of. I was on the veranda with Stewart and Patch. When over comes this smart man and demands that I give him Patch, because it was his dog. Mum was at bingo in the Sergeants Mess and wouldn’t be home till dad picked her up after work, What was I to do, well I had acquired a few choice words from being round the army lads. So I told him to F- -k off you f- -king bas- - -d teefman and you can pi-s off cus your not having my dog.

TEEFMAN, I should explain at every window of all the army properties were steel grids to stop thief’s but the locals could not pronounce the "th" so they used to say he is a teefman, and the wire at the windows was always referred to as teefwire. Anyway my tirade of abuse seemed to have the desired affect as he withdrew back to his car, "I’ll be back to see your father" was is parting words.

True to his word, just after tea he was back. Having told dad that there was a bloke who came to take Patch because he said it was his dog. "What did you do son" "I told him to buzz off dad" " good lad son, I’ll sort it". So as the man approached, dad went to meet him. It started off in a normal volume for conversation, but suddenly the volume got louder and louder, till "KEITH come here now". "Yes dad" " Did you call this man a f- -cking bas- - - d and a teefman" " who me dad, no not me dad". When the man starts calling me a little liar. "Now look if my lad say’s he didn’t call you a teefman and told you to f- -k off, then he didn’t tell you to F- -k off. But I’m telling you right now, whoever you are you can f- -k off right now".

"I am Dr Karefa Smart, Deputy Prime Minister of Sierra Leone." Said the smart man, " and I’ll have you thrown out of my country immediately" " You do that, you just do that, it will be the best days f- -king work you have ever done. Shall I start packing now" said dad. With that once again Dr Karefa Smart retired back to the Roll’s. " not so bloody smart now is he dad" say’s I . As I felt my left ear starts to sting, "what did you do that for dad". "For swearing, don’t do it again". "Yes Dad".

The following day, dad was sent for by his Commanding Officer, Captain Panton, who proceeded to read him the riot act, got to do it Harry, orders from the governors office. But don’t take it to heart the governor say’s you’ve got to give the dog back, ring this number and arrange for the dog to be handed over. With regard to the deputy P.Ms threat to have me thrown out of the country, when do I go Sir? "Nice try Harry but you’re here till 61 when this lot get there independence". Apparently, dad said " oh shit sir I was hoping he meant it. "He did" said Captain Panton. "But you will be staying and that’s official".

Well dad should have had just over a year left on his posting, but six months later we were stepping on to the tarmac at Heathrow. Whether Dr Karefa Smart had any thing to do with our early repatriation we shall never know. But do you think my name as a undesirable is still on record somewhere. Not that it matters, for I shall never return. But the memories linger on.

Footnote:- In the elections that followed independence in 1961 the opposition party won the election outright. And therefore Dr Karefa Smart never became the Deputy Prime Minister of a independent Sierra Leone.
Should you wish to check it out GOTO http://www.awarenesstimes.com/ you can see that Dr Karefa Smart is still going strong today. Though frail at 86 he is the leader of the UNPP party. But it would seem that he has been making his own rules as he goes along. Other members of the UNPP have called for a distancing policy from Dr Karefa Smart. Seems to be that he still wants it all his own way. Nothing changes does it even after 46 years.

Should Campaigning Become An Obsession?

Perhaps I should explain, in 1998 I was first diagnosed with a respiratory disease, with the rather grand title of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or it is more commonly referred to as C.O.P.D. But what ever you call it, for the sufferer it quite simply means that you cannot breathe in the " Normal Manner" whatever normal is. The truth of the matter is that no two sufferers are ever the same, similar yes, but never the same.

The reason being that C.O.P.D. is an umbrella term, which is used to cover many forms of lung disease. Would you like to have one for yourself, Cus’ there are plenty to choose from in fact there are over 40 known diseases ranging from Brittle Asthma, to Sleep Apnoea, from Lung Cancer to Bronchitis, from Sarcoidosis to Pulmonary Embolism, from Tuberculosis to Emphysema and the list goes on. "Me", I hit the jackpot "Emphysema".

I, of course jest when I say would you like one. I would not want to wish any one of these diseases on my worst enemy, of which thank God I have very few if any. Well apart from the newcomers to a smoking awareness scheme I run. However, after a short introduction and a few graphic pictures. It has and always will be the first question I put to any newcomers. "Which one would you like because you have a 65% of getting one". You will note that the scheme is called smoking awareness NOT a cessation scheme.

I have never told anyone to stop smoking, which has to be their own choice and theirs alone. Besides which as a smoker myself for over forty years, it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to tell others to do what I could not do myself. But the one thing I can do is to offer myself as an example of the consequences due to smoking.

In the last five years, I have chaired a support group in and around Bolton, and have given talks to various groups including medical conventions. I have been an ardent supporter of the British Lung Foundation, in funding their research into lung disease. I am also a delegate of our local P.C.T. (Primary Care Trust) And at every opportunity, fight for and champion the need for local funding of respite care for those with lung disease. Something that Coronary and Cancer patients are readily offered as a right.

As I am constantly pointing out to the P.C.T. If I can’t breathe it matters not one jot how strong my heart is, I’ll still die of organ failure due to lack of oxygen. Nearly 38% of all hospital admissions are chest-related infections and that’s even higher during the winter months. It makes perfect sense to me and to numerous Thoracic Consultants I have spoken to over the past few years. That if more money were available for pulmonary rehabilitation it would have an immediate effect on two fronts. (1) The patient would be fitter and therefore more likely to fight off infection. (2) Thereby reducing admissions to hospital, which creates a shortage of beds, for those whose need is far greater. The cost of providing Pulmonary Rehabilitation backed up with the Care in the Community initiative (Home Nursing) would reduce the cost of admissions by as much as 32% of the total care bill. But seeing the big picture is something the P.C.T. have no concept of.

Some of my close friends have often questioned why I feel so strongly about the need for better funding for Thoracic Medicine. The answer is very simple, thanks to the many people I have met over the last eight years. Consultants, Specialist Respiratory Nurses, Ward Sisters and Nurses. Who have always treated me as a person not a set of case notes. Also other patients who sometimes feel that they need someone with whom they can talk too who will offer advice in simple English that they can relate to.

The Support Group that we started in April 2002 as a core membership of 83, for more then 60% of us, any of the improvements above, which I feel so strongly about. When implemented and they will be implemented. Will unfortunately, be far to late for the likes of me and for many others.

But if through these efforts, I can encourage just one person to seriously consider their future health. Or the patient that has received a diagnosis to-day, and the one tomorrow and every other day of this week in hospitals and GPs surgeries, not only throughout this region but throughout the country. Who can then go on to be offered the prospect of a vastly improved prognosis. Then every word wrote, or spoken, every speech delivered or convention attended will have been worth every bit of effort expended.

I could of course sit back and do nothing but then, I would become like so many others with this condition. Many with lung disease are house-bound, and choose to become so because any form of exhaustion could bring on a attack resulting in a shutting down of the airways, and all the pain and discomfort.that goes with such an attack. So it becomes too easy to opt out. Choosing not put yourself potentially in harms way. But I choose to keep as active as possible, and unfortunately sometimes I have to pay for it. But that's my choice.

So Should Campaigning Become An Obsession?

I have stated that I have never told anyone to stop smoking. However I have threatened two very important people in my life, if they ever start smoking, I’ll come back and haunt them. WHO? My grandson’s James and Matthew.

Mum, Mum were did you say we are going Mum?.

The month January, the year 1958, and once again the packing cases have been filled. Tomorrow I shall be embarking on my second great adventure. Dad, a serving soldier, had once again been posted overseas, and tomorrow Mum, my baby brother Stewart and myself were to begin the journey to rejoin dad somewhere In Africa called Sierra Leone.

I had just had my 11th birthday, Stewart was to have his first birthday in just two days, the 27th. So, on Tuesday the 24th my uncle Albert drove us all from Sheffield down to London, where we stayed overnight to enable us to get to Blackbush Airport in Kent by 7.00am, for a flight scheduled for 8.00am. (this of course was well before the two hour check in and security checks). We arrived in good time, which allowed us time to say our farewells to uncle Albert, check in for the flight and for mum to get a nice cup of tea.

I can see the scene as clearly today as if it were only yesterday. The airport was ex WWII fighter command station, and consisted of about four nissan huts. What was obviously the main station office and control tower had been converted into the Check In and Customs, the luggage collection point and waiting lounge, and that was it.

To give you some idea of then and now. There were no tickets just an Army travel warrant. Yes, you had to have a passport, and they were stamped, you were asked to pass your hand luggage over. No case tickets were affixed to your luggage, just the flight number written on in chalk,the packing cases were to follow by freight, and you were now moved to the departure lounge, to be more correct a large draughty office with a counter serving tea and biscuits, which were free. The scene could have been the same in any railway station in those days and consisted of a very large water boiler, a large tea pot, and the basic thick rimmed white cups and saucers.

At 7.30am we were told that we should go to the plane ready for take off, so we go outside to look for the plane not that it took a lot of finding, it was the only one there. So that's what's going to take me to Africa is it ? I recognised the plane immediately it was one of them that you see in all the war films, you know that one where all the parachutist jump from, it's a DC10......... But in fact it wasn't, it was a twin engined Viking, the British version of the DC10. The operating company was Airworks, who apparently contracted for all of the flights for British service personal and their families. Or if you were a civil engineer on contract in the middle east in those days, the odds are you would have flown by Airworks.

So we get on the plane and I was right it is the one for parachutists, extremely basic in the interior design very little of the airframe had been covered in, and had a carrying capacity of just 42. We were about two thirds full. So we strapped in and waited for the off. Although this was my second great adventure, the first being to Hong Kong when I was just four, on which occasion we went out and returned on the original slow boat to China. But for me this was my first flight. So this was it as the engines roared into life, so much so that I was convinced the wings were going to drop off, but as we moved forward they were still there.

To take a flight to Sierra Leone nowadays it would take from Heathrow approximately 9 hours. But, in 1958, it took just a little longer. The first leg of our journey was to Paris, to what is now the Charles De Gaul airport, with a stopover to refuel, we take off at 12.30pm for the next leg of our journey to Gibraltar.

It was on this leg of the journey that I found out what them paper bags are for, which they handed out when boarding the plane. I reckon they knew something don't you? Flying in a twin engine Viking is I assure you NOTHING like the modern jets. In fact, the expression "Flying by the seat of your pants" comes to mind. Turbulence, you have never experienced turbulence till you've flown over the Pyrenees in a twin engine Viking. One minute your flying at what seems like hundreds if not thousands of feet above the mountains, the next minute you are looking up at the peaks above you. What was the words of that song from "Those magnificent men in their flying machines" Oh yes, "Up Down Flying Around, looping the the loop and defying the ground." Well we never actually looped the loop, but my tummy certainly did. Oh those up's and downs; pass me another one of those paper bags.

So we arrived in Gibraltar at about 6.30pm and disembark for a overnight stay. Now for a rough arse kid from Sheffield, this hotel had to be seen to be believed, it had like shiny floors in squares and even bigger shiny rectangles on the walls and massive columns to hold the roof up. Well for a eleven year old it seemed like a magnificent palace. I now know that this was commonplace for hotels to be clad in marble, but there were no package trips to the Costa's in them there day's, and even if there was we were not the sort of family that could afford to take foreign holidays. Following a evening meal and early to bed, we arose the following morning ready to continue the next leg of the journey: breakfast and back to the airport.

Six of our fellow travellers had reached their destination at Gibraltar, being naval personal. For the rest of us the next refueling stop was to be at Villa Sinarious, in the North West Sahara, which was a very small island off the mainland. ( I have since been informed that it is that small Island next to Lanzarote). To be more precise it was a large sand bar. However, it had a more serious purpose for it's location, following the end of the Spanish Civil War, the royalist prisoners were incarcerated on this Island and some were still there. The airstrip was made out of interlocking metal sheets, the noise and vibration at both take off and landing was very scary. We were not allowed off the plane, which would have been pointless as there was literally no where to go, but the heat was so oppressive, that we were well pleased to be taking off yet again on the next leg.

So now, we are flying over the African mainland on our way to the Gambia, for yet another stopover for the night in Bathurst (which is now Benjul) Once again I enjoyed a good evening meal but this time there was no early bed for me directly outside the hotel veranda was the Atlantic Ocean, so I'm off for a swim. I can well understand why the Gambia as become a popular tourist resort, though very primitive at the time as far as the infrastructure was concerned. But it would be hard to find a bluer sea or whiter beaches. Following breakfast we are off again.

And so we now finally embark on the final leg of our journey, flying at low level allowed us to see wild life on the plains of French West Africa and the north western forests of Sierra Leone, before approaching Freetown to complete the journey. A Journey of two and a half days, for a trip that would take about nine hours in this day and age. As you disembark from the plane you clear customs and board a small ferry to transport you to the mainland and the Capital, Freetown. Freetown is known as the finest natural harbour in West Africa, it also holds its fish market on the dockside, and long before you see Freetown, you smell it.

But for all of this in the two years and nine months we spent in Sierra Leone I still can recall many, many happy memories and my one regret is that I never went back. I was told a long time ago that I ought to commit my memories to the written form, but some of the tales I could relate, even I find hard to believe let alone the unsuspecting reader, but trust me, ther're all true.

But who knows through the medium of a blog I could possibly be tempted to shared a tale or two.
Possible Title's :- The Governors Daughter, Snake Bite, The Deputy Prime Minister, Shark Attack, Mamba on the veranda, Diamonds Riots, The Cotton Tree and more. I only need encouragement

You only need to ask, thanks for taking time out to read my recolections

Best regards

Keith.

Is it just me?

Is it just me, or as the world really gone mad. A few weeks ago I was asked "if there was one thing in history that I could change, what would it be"? After giving the question much consideration were does one start to right a wrong from the past.

Short of writing a article to compete with War and Peace. Go as far back in known history as you can and you will find countless reference’s to man’s inhumanity to man, You might choose to start with Cain and Abel now slowly work forward to New York’s 9/11 or London’s 7/7. Far cleverer people then myself have debated the reasons as to why man cannot live with his brother man, by reason of religion, ethnic background, colour or creed or shear bloody minded attitude to another point of view.

The answer to the question I was asked, "Hiroshima" Surely, something that was planned over a period of time. A bomb that was developed from scratch on the basis of physics principal. Tested and documented effects of the outcome were known, if, but more likely when it was used. The decision to drop the bomb took hours of debate. Having released the bomb it took approximately 38 seconds to ignition. The result was to kill a total of 70,000 immediately and a further 48,000 within ten minutes of exploding at the epicenter. Since then a further 248,000 (estimated) have died as a result of radiation induced illnesses. Three days later it was considered prudent to repeat the operation again, this time over Nagasaki. With a further estimated 260,000 deaths.

This being just one example of the insanity of war, or any conflict that throws country against country or tribe against tribe, one man against another for his belief or his opinion. But anyone that has stood at ground zero, or as seen the permanent reminded of the bell tower in Hiroshima, cannot help to be moved, too ask the question WHY. For something that took just over half a minute of time. The result was total devastation. To this day, this one moment in history remains responsible for the highest death toll of any single action.
Thank God, no one as chosen to repeat the Atomic or nuclear option since, and hopefully never will.

Yet to-day there are conflicts throughout the world still claiming the lives of non-combatants, women and children. From the Iraq, to Afghanistan, from conflicts of the past, Korea to Vietnam. The misguided ideology of the terrorist to endeavour to control by fear. So whether it be Country against Country or cause against cause. And still the senseless futility continues. Will we ever learn.