Past, present and future !!! (part 1)

Having just arrived back from Holiday, I had every intention of writing a blog about my observations on board ship and what I perceived as a hope for the future.

I log on to find Shrinkwrappedscream as written a fascinating blog about her families safari holiday featuring KICOO.This got my mind turning back the years to my time in Sierra Leone. And my best friend Swalee.So taking a leaf out of Shrinky's writing prowess, I shall break my efforts into three parts.Part One...... THE

PAST.
For anyone that read my previous blogs (Mum Mum) and (The Deputy Prime Minister) will know that I, my mother and younger brother landed on the shores of Sierra Leone in January 1958 at the tender age of 11. Dad had been posted out three months prior to establish a base for when we arrived. and boy what a base!! A four bedroom bungalow, Painted a brilliant white, apart from the shutters on each of the windows which were blue. The whole thing stood on ten pillars, with a double stairway to the veranda and front door.

Having been transported too the jetty where the launch had landed, having just come across from the airport some four miles offshore. Dad was there to meet us along with 2 Land Rovers and 2 Drivers. One for us and the other for the bags of which there was very little, because our crates had been sent out before us. So off we go to our new home in Africa. I was not in the slightest bit interested in all the information that Dad was passing on to Mum. All I was interested in was the place itself, the sounds, smells the street market directly outside the Jetty. So this was Freetown the Capital, I can see it today as clearly as I saw it for the first time 49 years ago. Apart from a dozen ish, large ish, modern ish shops there was very little there until you got onto Perdemba Road then British Empire grandeur had really shone through with buildings like the Parliament Building and Law Courts. but the most poignant feature was not a building, but the Cotton Tree or better known as the slave tree.

Sierra Leone, was selected as a suitable place to repatriate slaves from North America. And So in 1896 thousands of slaves were transported back in circumstances and ships no better then when their predecessors were taken into slavery stretching back to the late 1600's and early 1700's as new colonies were established in the new world.

So having arrived at our new home the second Land Rover's driver dropped off the bags, and made a hasty retreat from whence he came. The first driver a Corporal Bangora parked the LR and proceeded into a small outbuilding, to emerge nearly as quickly with a ironing board and the biggest chunk of metal which loosely resembled a iron, but with no wires, with two karkie tunics and a couple of pairs of shorts, this was clearly Dad's kit. Now the British Army don't allow N.C.Os. (non commissioned offices) to have batmen, but a British soldier on attachment to the West African Rifles, anyone with the rank of Sergeant or above was practically a God. So Corporal Bangora was dads driver, batman, linesman operator (general dogsbody for the radio transmitter). So that was Dad sorted, but what about poor old Mum.

Mum, now finds herself in a totally strange environment from what she had left behind in Sheffield. The nearest army neighbour was about two miles away down the road “err” make that track towards Freetown. The Bungalow from the outside looked very impressive, now the inside well that was something else. No running water, no WCs other then a thunder bin and a bottle of disinfectant, any more detail is not required just let your imagination do it’s worst and even now your not close. As far as the kitchen was concerned there was a two ringed calor gas cooker and a conventional electric cooker and a fridge. All of which were purely academic as 80% of the time there was no electricity, so oil lamps and candles were a necessity rather then a stand by. The rest of the kitchen consisted of an old fashion Belfast sink (which you would pay a lot of money for today) a couple of tall kitchen units and a table.

The living room consisted of two settees and two arm chairs and that was about it. But the bathroom that had to be seen to believed, with no running water there was a copper boiler outside and a siphon type of pump, so to have a bath or a shower you first light a fire under the boiler and wait for the water to hot up, for a shower you had to judge when you thought the temperature would be OK to get under. With no control on the temperature it was a bit of a lottery whether you got scolded or not, after a while we could time it quite well. The bedrooms were just that bedrooms, a bed and a mosquito net and a rail to hang your clothes and a set of draws. So that’s what Mum had to look after, until such time as Army Quarters could be found, the army had rented the bungalow for a period of twelve months or until married quarters became available.

The following morning at about 8.00am there was a knock at the door, dad went to answer closely followed by myself. On opening the door I can only say it as it was, there stood this young lad about 5ft 8or9 inchers but defiantly taller then me, who must have weighed less then 6 stone if that, he looked like a human skeleton. In fact looking back it reminds me of a few lines from a poem by Rudyard Kiplin “Gunga Din” and goes like this
“Now the uniform he wore was nothing much before,
and rather less then half of that behind.
But a piece of twisted rag and a goat skin water bag,
was all the field equipment he could find”.
Well OK he did not have a water bag, but the rest of the description could fit him to a tee.
Now I have to admit I had not been in the company of many coloured people in my eleven years but one thing I am absolutely certain of, I had never seen anyone this black and I don’t mean dark brown I mean ebony black, which made his eyes seem to be popping out of their sockets, big, bright, white eyes. So this was my first sight of and introduction to SWALEE.

Now Swalee was not much of a talker, in fact his English was limited to a few well rehearsed phrases like “Swalee, very good house boy” or “Swalee, very good cleany house” and of course the classic “Swalee, very good for clean shit bins”. It transpired that Corporal Bangora had sent Swalee to get the job of house boy, Bangora was his uncle. So that’s how we acquired a house boy. Dad was always addressed as sir, Mum was always Missie, me I became Kei. Swalee like all of his country men could not pronounce the “th”, and Stewart became Baba Stew. Now for a rough arsed kid from Sheffield It took me a long time to get my head round the idea of having house servants.

Swalee, lived in the local village of Wilberforce, in what might loosely be termed as a house, in fact it was a single storey square tin box made up of corrugated sheets, the dimensions I would guess at being about 16 – 18 feet square. This housed Mum, Dad and seven siblings, 3 girls and 4 Boys, Swalee being the eldest at the age of fourteen. And potentially the breadwinner of the family. The youngest was just two years of age and a Girl

Over the following months we were moved on three more occasions. The first move was just six months after arriving, we were moved to a army flat at a camp called Signal Hill, after that we moved back to Wilberforce but within the camps perimeter and finally to Juba camp, a bungalow overlooking the best beach in Sierra Leone. Also the place I had the running argument with the Deputy Prime Minister. And what of Swalee, and our friendship in all this time. Well thats a whole new story for part two if you will allow me to tell it.