Some 23 years ago Keith Arrowsmith published a memoir of his first
years in the Colonial Service, as an administrative officer in Eastern
Nigeria, 1949-1957. Bush Paths soon established itself among the
autobiographies of service in Nigeria.
Now he has given us another memoir, half of it on his Colonial Service
career (Uganda and Hong Kong after Nigeria) and half on his follow-up
years in London and Brussels, ending with his work in UK local government.
He happily revisits his Nigerian memoir, recalling fresh episodes, including
the urgency of his Resident's opening question, "by the way, Arrowsmith, do
you play hockey?" as well as learning the routine introduction to what was
really at issue in the commonplace after-dinner ritual of 'seeing Africa'. The
title Changing Scenes is appropriate, though readers may still be wanting to
know why the Colonial Service attracted him and whether his OCTU days in
Bangalore were an Influence. On the other hand, his work In Local
Government in Abingdon is one of the few accounts of this kind of post-
Colonial Service 'second career', an experience on which many DOs had
been deeply involved in as a replacement for the policy of indirect rule and
traditional chiefs.
The account of his work in the three colonies Is well recorded, and
extensively so when he recounts his post-Service appointments in London
and then as a Principal Administrator in the Commission of European
Communities In non-stop Brussels, until his final retirement at 65 and
moving into UK local government.
Throughout the book one wonders in admiration how Arrowsmith is able to
record such a wealth of details on places, persons and postings, thereby
stretching the sources available to most Colonial Service authors, who
principally rely on the weekly letter home, or, in a few salient cases, on the
sizeable diary they used to keep (lucky for today's Colonial Service
archives, too). Arrowsmith scrupulously maintained what he calls
"scrapbooks" in which he filed an extensive variety of documentary
evidence, "programmes, tickets, bills, letters, postcards, etc." The habit
dates back to his schooldays at Marlborough in 1937. There is also a poem
he wrote on the voyage out after his Cambridge Devonshire course,
romantically titled "Evening in the Gulf of Guinea". Judging by the wealth of
photographs in the book and the copies of Arrowsmith's own paintings on
the front and rear covers, the "scrapbooks" may contain yet more memoir
prize material.
Lest any Colonial Service readers fear that the second half of his book has
little to do with the Service (an opportunity missed is in Arrowsmith's silence
on his important work for OSPA since the late 1990s as a member of the
OSPA Council and his chairmanship of the related Benevolent Society
Committee), let me enthusiastically draw attention to the richness of the
final 40 pages (almost a fifth of the book). Here Arrowsmith has compiled
three Annexes, all comprising data on the Colonial Service which is as
valuable as any researcher could wish for. One is a full reproduction of a
DO'S Annual Report on his Division, the kind of source which, in contrast to
Provincial and Colony Reports, has rarely been reproduced and was never
published. The second document, again a rarity. Is the author's Handing
Over Notes on Eket Division to Charles Swaisland in 1957. The final Annex
reproduces the article Arrowsmith published on moving to Uganda, "The
Administrative Officer Today"
Definitely an important book for my Colonial Service library.
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