It should not be held against this work that its basic story is another one of a young
man, in this case a Scot, joining the Colonial Service, with little more expectation than
that of enjoying Africa's wide open spaces and retiring from it with a deep affection for
the people among whom he worked. Nor should the fact that the author's overseas career
began and ended among the Ashantis (as the word was then written) - Administrative
Cadet in 1929 to Chief Regional Officer (as the Chief Commissioner had come to be
called) in 1957. For the early chapters are an interesting account of many-faceted district
administration in the area of what had been throughout the 19th Century the major military
power of this part of West Africa. The later ones recount the author's growing conflict of
loyalties as representative government for the Gold Coast brought a legislature and
Government composed mainly of Ashanti's traditional enemies. It was greatly to Colin
Russell's credit that independence for the whole of Ghana was achieved without major
bloodshed in Ashanti. This also required a special visit by the Secretary of State and an
eleventh hour modification of the independence constitution, both recalled in this book.
Many of us will have thought of recording our recollections of lives in what is now an
almost forgotten era for the enjoyment of our descendants or for colonial archives. But
the author, now in his nineties and retired from a second career as a clergyman, had the
good sense to keep a diary in West Africa. And this has provided the supplement to
memory justifying this exposure to a wider readership. The diary entries were rarely
judgemental so we learn little of the author's impressions of the many important people
he met during his tour spells as Private Secretary in Government House, or otherwise in
Accra and Cape Coast or whom he entertained in the Residency at Kumasi. However
some people stand out - early in his career the Chief of Kintampo; later the Paramount
Chief of the Ashantis for whom the author developed an admiration; and some members
of Nkrumah's Government and a leading academic for whom he did not. With the Prime
Minister himself the author had a satisfactory working relationship.
In short a readable and entertaining book.
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