I'm the one on the right. REX Brindle was proud of his big American car. It was the only one of its kind in Uganda. So he was devastated when he got up one morning and found the car was jacked up on bricks and his wheels were gone. He thought they would be impossible to replace and went to a garage in Kampala. Yes, they said, they could replace them, but it would take a week. A week later, they fitted his stolen wheels back on without a blush and charged him an exhorbitant price.
Life was always amusing, different, exciting and bizarre in East Africa in the 1960s. I lived in The Silver Springs Hotel with mainly other ex-pats. It also served as a base for US air crew for a month when the UN were flying mercy missions into the Congo during the civil war. My newspaper, the Daily Nation, was offered a couple of seats to fly into Stanleyville (now Kisangani) to do a cover piece. I lost the toss and my chum Caz went with a photographer. The plane landed and let them off into a town besieged by the Simbas and took off again. It was the last plane out and Caz and the photoghrapher were stranded there for three weeks until they escaped overland and flew home from South Africa. All things considered, I'm glad I lost the toss.
I was night editor: the paper was basically done and I was there in case of emergencies and to do early pages for the next day. It didn't stop me frequenting the bars of the city, that ranged from the ultra colonial City Bar to the White Nile Club in Mengo which provided brilliant live African music. My friends included a local CIA rep, a Kikuyu printer called Winston and a bevy of characters that would not be out of place in a Graham Greene novel. I toured Murchison Falls Game Park with a couple of mates, and Nairobi Game Park in the company of a retired park warden and, as a photographer, covered the East African Rally and an international football match between Uganda and Ethiopia, who were current African champions. Ethiopia won 7-1 and four of their team took their boots off at half time and played in their bare feet.
There were only 6,000 Europeans (mainly British) in Uganda and, to a degree, racial rules still applied. We produced both English language and local language newspapers and the staff mixed freely. But that's journalists. They were a good bunch.
Africa was a wonderful experience. I even had a bank account with the Ottoman Bank and I still have a cheque book. Unfortunately, when I arrived I entered on a temporary work permit and the newly independent country was flexing its muscles against the colonial presence. I was issued with a deportation notice well before my two year contract ended and given two days to leave.
Even my departure was memorable. A dozen of my chums from the Silver Springs Hotel went with me to the airport, white, Asian and black, in a convoy of cars. I wandered out onto the runway, one of only a handful of passengers being picked up by a flight from South Africa, and the balcony behind me erupted into cheers and shouts and rude comments from them, all outlined against the night sky as they waved drinks in a farewell toast. I still don't know if I was popular or they were just glad to see me go.
Life was always amusing, different, exciting and bizarre in East Africa in the 1960s. I lived in The Silver Springs Hotel with mainly other ex-pats. It also served as a base for US air crew for a month when the UN were flying mercy missions into the Congo during the civil war. My newspaper, the Daily Nation, was offered a couple of seats to fly into Stanleyville (now Kisangani) to do a cover piece. I lost the toss and my chum Caz went with a photographer. The plane landed and let them off into a town besieged by the Simbas and took off again. It was the last plane out and Caz and the photoghrapher were stranded there for three weeks until they escaped overland and flew home from South Africa. All things considered, I'm glad I lost the toss.
I was night editor: the paper was basically done and I was there in case of emergencies and to do early pages for the next day. It didn't stop me frequenting the bars of the city, that ranged from the ultra colonial City Bar to the White Nile Club in Mengo which provided brilliant live African music. My friends included a local CIA rep, a Kikuyu printer called Winston and a bevy of characters that would not be out of place in a Graham Greene novel. I toured Murchison Falls Game Park with a couple of mates, and Nairobi Game Park in the company of a retired park warden and, as a photographer, covered the East African Rally and an international football match between Uganda and Ethiopia, who were current African champions. Ethiopia won 7-1 and four of their team took their boots off at half time and played in their bare feet.
There were only 6,000 Europeans (mainly British) in Uganda and, to a degree, racial rules still applied. We produced both English language and local language newspapers and the staff mixed freely. But that's journalists. They were a good bunch.
Africa was a wonderful experience. I even had a bank account with the Ottoman Bank and I still have a cheque book. Unfortunately, when I arrived I entered on a temporary work permit and the newly independent country was flexing its muscles against the colonial presence. I was issued with a deportation notice well before my two year contract ended and given two days to leave.
Even my departure was memorable. A dozen of my chums from the Silver Springs Hotel went with me to the airport, white, Asian and black, in a convoy of cars. I wandered out onto the runway, one of only a handful of passengers being picked up by a flight from South Africa, and the balcony behind me erupted into cheers and shouts and rude comments from them, all outlined against the night sky as they waved drinks in a farewell toast. I still don't know if I was popular or they were just glad to see me go.
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