The Boy from Boskovice by Vicky Unwin

Author:Vicky Unwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783529070
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2020-11-17T04:14:24+00:00

CHAPTER 13:

LEAVING AFRICA

Our life in Tanganyika ended in 1964, when Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to become Tanzania. Despite setting up three foreign embassies on behalf of the new government after independence in 1961 – in Bonn (1962), New Delhi (early 1963) and Kinshasa (mid-1963) – Tom had been told that, as a Brit, he could either become a national of Tanzania or he would have to leave. While he loved the country and admired Nyerere, he felt he could not take the risk of staying.

His decision was influenced by the unrest of that year. In January 1964 several hundred radical Africans rose up and overthrew the Omani Sultan, who had ruled Zanzibar for over 300 years, in a revolution that killed thousands of Arab and Indian residents. Six days after the Zanzibar Revolution, the Tanganyika African Rifles mutinied, fired up by their brothers in Zanzibar. Tom and Sheila were great friends with Commander-in-Chief Brigadier Pat Sholto Douglas of the Tanganyika African Rifles, who escaped and came to our house with a number of officers. They parked a corporal armed with a huge panga outside the house, just in case. I distinctly remember the Brigadier coming and hiding under my bed, as he and his officers were in fear of their lives.

Tom insisted that my mother and I took refuge in the Canadian High Commission. There we waited all day for news that President Nyerere was safe and for the arrival of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Rhyl, which had been summoned to Zanzibar the week before and whose help Nyerere had again requested. The city was in a state of anarchy with the mutineers in charge of the army, and there was trouble downtown as Arab and Indian traders were chased out and their shops looted, just as in Zanzibar.

A few days later, we were woken up at 6.30 a.m. by the sound of gunfire. We rushed down to the beach at Msasani village, and there was a massive aircraft carrier, HMS Centaur, accompanied by the destroyer HMS Cambrian, firing her guns, helicopters swarming around her like flies and swooping down on the admiring crowds for photographs. Brigadier Douglas, who had hidden on the beach until he was picked up by a boat from HMS Centaur, was on board and directing operations to retake the barracks by dropping men by helicopter behind the mutineers’ lines. Marines were prowling the streets and, after some sporadic fighting, order was restored. The mutiny was over.

The mutiny served to reinforce Tom’s decision to leave Tanzania. He had been told he would be removed from external affairs and, hot-headed as ever, he resigned. He applied for several jobs in the region, as he did not wish to leave Africa, but nothing suitable came up. In June he departed for Rome, Paris and London to find a new job, leaving us behind.

Once he had resigned we lost the house, and my mother and I moved into Neville’s house as he was away at the time. She

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