Review by A.H.M. Kirk-Greene
(Nigeria 1950-66, lecturer in Modern History of Africa, Oxford University)
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The Eastern Region used to be part of the Nigerian Administration lore that if you were to remove all
Nigerians from the country, civil strife would erupt between the members of the
Southern and Northern Services. Here, then, is an opportunity to lay that ghost by
referring to an Eastern DO's memoir as a complement to those from the North
(NCMcC.) and West (MCA) reviewed here.
Bush Paths is attractively produced by the Pentland Press, with a dust-jacket
enhanced by Keith Arrowsmith's own watercolours. I suppose that, in statistical terms
as well as in the matter of personal health, there must, like champagne, be a finite
number of Colonial Service memoirs that one can take. But at the moment of
consumption it all seems too astronomical to believe. Certainly I for one will gladly
accept another - book or bottle - if the vintage is as attractive as Keith Arrowsmith's
account of his service as an administrative officer in Eastern Nigeria from 1949 to
1957. Though based on a journal, the presentation is good narrative, not staccato
diary (Chapter 15, opening with its "doings during the course of an ordinary day's
work in the District Office", is deliberately logbook style), and full of well described
incidents innocent of any immodest suggestion that they were anything more than
everyday occurrences. Others of us will have met or known Arrowsmith in Uganda
(1957-1965) or Hong Kong (1966-1969). If he writes as well on those 'life and times'as
he has on his years in Rivers, Ogoja and Calabar Provinces, we have yet more to look
forward to.
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Review by J.W.H. O'Regan
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Even at school, as Keith Arrowsmith mentions in this admirable memoir of the day
to day life of a young Administrative Officer stationed in the Eastern Nigeria "Bush",
the Colonial Service was a calling for which he had felt an attraction. While on leave in
Poona in 1945, after service in Malaya and India, he decided to commit himself and
was one of those interviewed by Patrick Renison, to whom the Colonial Service - and
our then Colonies - owe such a great debt for being largely responsible for the
recruitment scheme that led to the high quality of those, like the author, selected from
the Armed Services.
The material for the book was drawn from the journals Arrowsmith kept, off and
on, during his service in Nigeria from 1949 to 1957 and the result is an authentic, lively,
most readable and convincing account of his experiences - some amusing, some sad
and others just bizarre.
But, what is so striking is that there is no hint of condescension or of any feeling of
being a superior being working amonp people less civilised than himself. He accepted
them as they were and clearly evoked, m response, affection and respect. Furthermore,
although there is little mention of the far reaching political developments taking place
in Nigeria (both the Western and Eastern Regions gained self-government in the year
he left) this does not imply that he was out of sympathy with them. Indeed it is clear
that he regarded it as an important part of his job to help to prepare, at his ^ass-roots
level, those amongst whom he worked to manage their own affairs. It is sigiuficant that
in 1957 he was selected for transfer to Uganda where he remained until 1965, three
years after independence. There he helped, as the reviewer can testify, to estabUsh the
Ministry system which, but for the evil influence of Idi Amin, could well have given
Uganda a successful and prosperous future.
He follows his dedication to his former friends and colleagues, both Nigerian and
British, with the quotation "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant", a fitting motto not only for Keith Arrowsmith but for the Colonial Service as a whole.
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Author
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Keith Arrowsmith
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Published
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1991
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Pages
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185
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Publisher
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Pentland Press
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ISBN
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1872795242
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Availability
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The author has very kindly allowed us to reproduce his book in full here on this website.
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Abebooks
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